RC

How come everyone else remembers their childhood?
How come they don't describe it as a fuzzy dream of which they were barely a part of?
Why don't I remember anything from before I was five? or from when I was five? or six? or seven?
Why are my childhood memories fragmented?
Why can't I tell made-up memories apart from real memories?

I know about things I did because my parents talk about them in Christmas' and New Year's , sometimes even when I have boys over. I've been taught to remember a stage which should've been formatory through their stories and videotapes of a clumsy, whiny, bad tempered child, but why do I not feel them my own?

I remember only pieces of pre-elementary and elementary.
I remember Vanessa's place and playing with barbies in disco-hawaiian garments, an apartment complex with a brick facade.
Sneaking into my mother's bathroom drawers and taking her make up to school, being busted, being grounded, sneaking back in, being busted, being scolded, sneaking     ..being busted... scolded, neverending.
I think I remember a friend, I think his name was Alex and I think he was friends with Patrick. I remember playing 'Clarissa explains it all' with them, stupid, we kids are.
I remember Gabriel Luna, in my first year of elementary, bright red hair, freckles, green eyes. His skin was so pale, beautiful boy. I was scared of him, I sat next to him (I think), now and then and would stare at him 'til the bell rang. He had such beautiful hand-writing and smelled like glue. I was scared of him.
I remember how I hated Miss Lina, but felt forced to learn to appreciate her because I knew Daniel found her to be nice. How I resented Miss Angelica but loved her for the same reasons.
I remember Aurora's place and that painting on her wall of a younger version of her mother, topless, on a rock, with a mermaid tail. It felt wrong to look at the painting directly, it was my friend's mother, half-naked, posing provocatively, surely it was wrong, surely it was forbidden, my parents would've made me cover my eyes at her had she been part of a movie, topless and provocative like that.


I feel like I started really living when I was 8-9, most memories I quote come from being 13.

What the hell did it mean?
The stubby skin, the yellow fleshy lunchbox? The little feet, the birth-marks? The purple elephant skin?

Where did I learn this?
When did it start?