Hey! You know, when you're chatting with a friend and something they said sticks with you, lingering in your thoughts long after the conversation ends?
A call back — it makes you dig deeper into those moments that resonate, exploring them further, and maybe uncovering something new along the way.
This happened to me recently with a friend of mine, Mariya Delano. Listen to the core memory story she shared with me:
Hi Meg, sorry I missed you.
One of the core memories that came to mind when I was thinking about this is a memory that's both one of the saddest and one of the most joyous ones that I have from my childhood.
I was around seven years old, living in Zhytomyr in Ukraine.
And I was still living with both of my parents who separated shortly after.
One Saturday I woke up, and in our bedroom, the window's open.
It's the summer, so I feel the breeze, and it's nice.
But then I wonder why it's open…
And I go to the other room and I see my dad sitting alone with his head in his hands, looking extremely distressed.
And I ask,
“Hey, where's mom?”
My dad looks at me and he says,
“Did you see the window? She jumped out of that.”
Before you freak out, we were on the ground floor. My mother did not get hurt jumping out of that window, but she did run away.
And my dad had to tell my seven year old self,
“Your mom ran away through the window, and I didn't have the guts to close it again.”
And that could have been it.
That could have been one of the most depressing days in my life. But instead, my dad saw my face, he saw that I started crying, and he told me,
“You know what? We can still make this a good day. I want to make it a good day for you.”
So he took me to the forest. We always went to the forest.
Zhytomyr is in one of the most forest dense areas of Ukraine but this time he drove me to a further off, denser part of the forest on the other side of the city, and we just walked.
I remember the sunlight, I remember the rustling beneath our feet.
I remember he was telling me stories and pointing out trees and mushrooms.
Then we got to a clearing.
This was a spot that we had never seen before.
I remember being so small and the world being so large, everything just opened up.
I saw the sun shining on this valley, on this small clearing that seemed so gigantic to me.
There was a little stream where you could see the trees on the other side, and the flowers in the grass, it was beautiful.
My dad reminds me to this day that I turned to him and I said
“Dad I didn't know that we lived near the Dinosaur Valley.”
He asks,
“What Dinosaur Valley?”
And I reply,
“Like in the cartoons that I like, The Land Before Time.”
Which was this series of animated movies about dinosaurs that I really loved.
And so, I turn to my dad and I say,
“This is the Dinosaur Valley, this is where Littlefoot lived.”
And I remember running.
Running through the grass, running through that clearing, through that field, and the sun was so beautiful, and I remember hearing the water, and I remember hearing my dad laugh.
And it was just one of the most beautiful moments that I've ever shared with him. And I forgot the reason why we were there.
I remember coming home later that day, and my mom still wasn't there. And the heaviness setting in on my heart of “my mother ran away from home.”
That's why we were having fun.
But the beautiful thing is, my dad and I still talk about the Dinosaur Valley. We went there many times since.
But we don't really talk about the time my mother ran out. Because that wasn't the important part of that memory.
The important part was the mystery and wonder of seeing the trees clear in a forest and feeling like your favorite animated dinosaur characters had walked that earth in that exact spot millions of years before you.
Thanks, I'll talk to you later.
Memory Redirecting 🎬
What could’ve been the most depressing day of Mariya’s life turned into one of the most beautiful moments her and her father have ever shared.
I wonder how these two memories, that evoke two polar opposite emotions, can coexist?
Not only that, but because of a caring father and a fictional dinosaur the positive interaction takes prominence in their memory.
Our memories control our perception of the world and our place in it, but the ability we have to make memories that shape our world view and that of others is so powerful.
Mariya’s father knew the memory that was being made by leaving the window open.
Could he delete that memory? No.
But he could redirect it.
Which is why he made the choice to make a better memory with Mariya that would reshape her view of that day. And a love like that really makes my heart sparkle 💖
Can you think of a core memory you have that was redirected or maybe you redirected for someone else?
I’m sure there’s a lot of redirecting that comes along with being a parent, that us kids probably don’t even realize.
Thanks parents.
And I’m so thankful to Mariya for sharing this story, did it give you the warm and fuzzies like it did for me?
Mariya is one of the coolest people I’ve ever virtually met. I got introduced to her through being a fangirl of her newsletter: Attention Deficit Marketing Disorder (ADMD).
She’s also the founder of Kalyna Marketing, a marketing agency for B2B technical brands and makes great entrepreneurial content on LinkedIn. You two should connect! I love connecting great humans to great humans.
I’ll let you go now but I’ll call again soon.
Okay byeeee!
Memory Redirects | Sorry I Missed You (17)