Have you ever shared a memory with someone, something you were absolutely sure was crystal clear in your mind, only to find out… they remember it completely differently?
I’ll be honest, a few years ago, that kind of moment would’ve made me furious.
I remember accusing someone of lying, “How can you not remember what really happened?” I couldn’t understand how our memories could be so out of sync.
Well, it just happened to me again,
but this time… something shifted.
Instead of anger, a deeper, more powerful thought crossed my mind…
A few weeks ago, I landed back in Italy after a long time away. I caught up with some of the friends I grew up with, people who were by my side from age 18 to 26.
You know, the kind of friendships where entire phases of your life live.
And, of course, we started reminiscing.
Late nights, ridiculous jokes, road trips, heartbreaks, we brought it all back.
Or… we thought we did.
Because something strange happened.
We were all talking about the same events, but telling completely different versions of them.
In my mind, I remembered that one summer night like it was a movie, the music, the conversations, even the outfit someone was wearing.
But the others? Different soundtrack. Different storyline.
One of them didn’t even remember the night at all.
So I had to ask myself,
What actually happened?
And more importantly, why do we remember it so differently?
The trickster that is memory
Turns out, memory isn’t a filing cabinet,
it’s more like a creative writer with a tendency to improvise.
Science tells us that each time we recall something, we’re not pulling out an exact copy, we’re reconstructing the memory.
We fill in gaps, we add emotion, we change the lighting, the tone, even the dialogue.
The result? The more we remember… the more we rewrite.
So maybe it’s not so strange that two people walk away from the same moment with different stories in their heads.
We’re not remembering what happened, we’re remembering how we felt about it.
Whose version is “true”?
Maybe none of them, or maybe all of them, in their own way.
I used to think memory was sacred, like something we could protect, archive, and revisit whenever we needed proof.
But the more I talk to people, the more I realize, memory is personal, and it shifts over time.
A shared moment becomes two parallel stories, each shaped by the role we played, our emotional state, and what we needed that memory to become later.
Is that sad? Or is it actually… kind of beautiful?
When memory becomes a fog
And here’s something else I’ve been thinking about.
What if some of the tension we carry, resentments, broken friendships, conversations we replay over and over, aren’t even based on what actually happened, but on how we remembered it?
Sometimes we’re angry at someone because of a version of a story we’ve told ourselves for years, and maybe… they’ve told themselves a different one.
So here’s what I’m learning,
Maybe the answer isn’t to keep a diary so I can “keep track” of reality…
…but to embrace the mystery of memory.
To accept that what I recall is probably just 10% of what really happened, wrapped in emotion, perception, and time.
And that’s okay.
Because even if it’s foggy, even if it’s not perfect, what lives in our minds still holds meaning.
It’s ours, it’s magic,
it’s the emotional imprint of who we were at that exact moment.
So no, I won’t be too hard on myself.
I won’t judge others too harshly.
And maybe I won’t hold on so tightly to a version of the past I think I know.
Because the beauty of memory isn’t in how accurate it is,
it’s in how deeply it mattered to you.
———————————————————————-
Veronica,
Currently in Venice.
“Where light dances on the canals and every gondola knows its way home.“
Work Unplugged 
Leave a comment