Watching yourself as a child is an odd sensation. Recently my parents digitised some old videotapes. These are videos my parents took while we grew up abroad. My father has always been tech savvy and when we moved as a family it was necessary to take videos of us as children for our grandparents sake as they would miss out on a lot of time spent with us. We only saw my grandparents during the summer holidays during these years so this way they could watch us grow up.
There are hours and hours of footage. As it is unedited, large parts really do drag out. The bulk of these videos involve my father informing the camera about where we are and what we are doing then rustling up us kids to have little interviews. It is really quite cute in moments. There are many funny wholesome clips and to be able to have a glimpse back to those days does warm my heart. I'm a sucker for nostalgia so it feels special to have this material on hand. Watching this also gave me a chance to view my parents in a different way. They certainly had their hands full with all us kids running around. The noise we could generate... my goodness. Deafening.
I wonder, is this exercise in looking back demystifying the fog of childhood memories? Not many of my friends have experienced the same thing - that of having so much of their childhood taped. However, this will be and probably is already the norm for those entering adulthood now. With smart phones making filming so much easier. We will all have the confusing experience of seeing a person that is us but is so different to our current selves. With so many experiences and so much learning in their future, they have a long way to go until they are shaped into who we are now.
Watching myself however brings mixed emotions. I have to admit I am quite self obsessed and so my eye was constantly drawn to younger me. Yet this little person on screen felt like an entity so separate to myself. It's like watching a different person, I have no idea what is going on in his head in these moments caught on camera. I also seem to show many different sides to myself in these videos. Some moments I am demanding the attention of the camera, jumping around and acting silly for it. Other times I am quiet and aloof as my dad tries to squeeze some words out of me. I suppose not much has changed in this sense. Everyone has moods that fluctuate. Although I do feel some unique form of empathy for this young me - is it empathy if I'm feeling it towards myself? I hope he's doing ok anyway.
I am lucky I don't have truly embarrassing moments caught in this videos. If I was unable to forget something like that in the fog of old memories I imagine it could torment me to this day instead of being left in the past where it belongs. That's not to say there aren't also plenty of cringe inducing moments as well. Young me and current me are not so different after all...
Going back to the question of whether looking back at these videos demystifies the fog of childhood memories. Well... to an extent. It will clear up memories most likely lost or half remembered and bring them into a clear view. Yet we aren't seeing this from the perspective we experienced back then. We are looking at ourselves from the view of our parents. Also unless we were being recorded every minute of every day we still have the haze of many more imperfect memories. Intellectually we are aware that our memories are fallible but rarely do we have to confront this. Perhaps in the future this will change.
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