Member-only story

My Earliest Memory

A creative non-fiction spurt — a burst from the past

Jillian Spiridon
2 min readFeb 19, 2025
Photo by Ajeet Mestry on Unsplash

It’s back to the beginning — back to when I started collecting memories in the cache of my brain and wishing I could change things even though I had so little in my palms.

The room is familiar, one I’ll see in pictures years later even though I won’t remember being there. Maybe I was dissociating even back then, lost to a world of my own even as the real world rumbled around outside me, divorced from my inner life.

The television — a box number, one you wouldn’t see now — sits flashing scenes. I think it’s a travelogue, someone’s trip overseas. Even then, it was an ache in me to see beyond my sphere of life — but that wasn’t meant to happen. I would always be stuck, I think, in my little world with my little things.

My mom and dad are somewhere nearby, but even then I’m not focusing on them. I’m focusing on bigger things — like Disney World, like ocean waves, like the touch of what those things might mean for me if only I might grasp them. But that world is so far away. It will be a long time before I ever see these things for myself.

The television becomes my gateway to another world, and I sit there for hours and wish I could transport myself to a world that doesn’t hurt like this one does.

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Jillian Spiridon
Jillian Spiridon

Written by Jillian Spiridon

just another writer with too many cats

Responses (3)

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❤️ I'm proud of you for sharing.

💔💔

The room is familiar, one I’ll see in pictures years later even though I won’t remember being there.

You have just triggered a memory of my grandma's speckled linoleum steps.
I very much appreciate you sharing.