memories

My younger sister and I have very different memories about quite recent events. For instance there's a concert that she says I attended with them. I know I didn't. Fortunately for events in the more distant past, the sister between us in age has a fly-paper memory and we can usually agree to go along with her version of events.

Janerowena it sounds to me as if you have a perfectly good memory. It's a shame that we sometimes feel we have to prove or justify ourselves when we know we are right really.

Yes I agree that sometimes memory gets better as you get older, mine has. And bichonmad mine is not as smart as she thinks she is either (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) I also get the 'I have told you that once' when I haven't been told. Sitting and listening with a smile is the best way Let them re-write history if it makes them feel happy. Hope this doesn't sound as though I think I am always right - I certainly don't!

I get so fed up, I know I have a good memory, that I now keep a notebook and a date of anything OH and one of my sisters says to me. Then I can make them refer back to it. I also keep all of the emails that my sister sends to me. I think she has had quite a shock about her own memory as a result. I just did a cognitive memory test and I am way, way above the average for my age. I am going to make my sister do it in front of me, I think! I sometimes think I should be taking recordings off all of our conversations too, but maybe that would be going too far. OH tells my son things, and assumes I was there too. Or psychic.

oh how i feel so much better now i shall sit and listen with a smile on my face,and gracesmum you are so right,i am so glad my dc are not as smart as they would like to think

One DS says 'I've already told you that' when I'm sure he hasn't! I think he tells DH and thinks he's told us both.

I have a suspicion, that we actually remember more accurately as we get older and the "editing" occurs more in younger people. So stick to your guns. On the other hand I would never let an over-attention to accuracy get in the way of a good story, just make sure my audience don't know better . Think Tom in "Waiting for God".
Which reminds me, Did I tell you about the time.....

Glad its not just me then. My daughter's memories are totally different to mine. Sometimes she says things and I think 'that didn't happen like that'.
I think maybe she 'embroiders the truth' to make things appear slightly more in her favour ! She said to me the other day do you remember that cat we had called Sooty? I said no we didn't have a cat called Sooty. We've only every had one cat. She said yes we did. We definitely didn't.
(Sorry for the pettiness)

When we remember we always edit our memories, not necessarily consciously, because memories are often incomplete and we try and tie all the ends together to make complete sense from start to finish.

We also bring our own points of view and personalities into our interpretation of the events then and later when we recall them. My youngest sister is seven years my junior and our memories of past events are very different given that I was older and the eldest child and she was younger and considered the baby in the family.

I get annoyed when my older brother corrects me about things that happened when we were children. I sympathise with him for having spent years in boarding school (we were in the RAF) but I sometimes have to bite my tongue and not say, 'How can I be wrong when you weren't even there?'

My mother has always loved to fantasize about the past so we have an acronym for her 'little stories' - LOOFAs - as in Load Of Old Fanny Adams

I think we all remember different bits of things - and of course my husband always gets it wrong!