False Memories

I ran into a former colleague recently, from a job I hadn’t thought about in years. Over coffee, we fell into a warm wave of nostalgia. We reminisced about the friends we made, the late-night coding sessions that felt like forging something new, and how that job became a crucial stepping stone for both of our careers.

“I loved that place,” I said, genuinely surprised by my own sentiment. “I’m not even sure why I left.”

She laughed. “Because we hated it!”

Her words were a key, unlocking a vault of memories I’d clearly edited.

It’s funny how memory works. In the early 2010s, being a web developer was a wild west. We didn't have the centralized, corporate controlled communication channels like Microsoft Teams or Slack. No! Our communication was a chaotic mosaic of AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Facebook Chat, and Pidgin. It was a decentralized mess and we loved it. This digital chaos, however, had one unexpected benefit for me personally: it kept receipts. I backed up all my conversations, a chaotic digital mess of my own, and took them with me when I left.

I still have some of those old chat logs. Reading them now is equal parts entertaining and horrifying. The primary theme of our days was a constant, grinding chorus of complaint. We worked hard, but we whined harder. I’ve even written blog posts from that era, and the negativity practically bleeds through the screen.

The truth is, I left because the stress had become physical. I’d started grinding my teeth at night. Our lead developer, a man who, I should note, is now serving a life sentence in jail (for reasons entirely unrelated to bad management, though it certainly adds a shade to the memory) he had plotted against me and shattered our team.

When I finally quit, I was burned out. I spent a full year not working, just rebuilding my energy and myself.

But here’s the miracle the gentle fraud our minds perform: that’s not the story I tell myself anymore.

Somehow, over time, the positive memories expanded like a gas, filling all the available space. The negatives didn’t vanish, but their sharp edges were worn smooth. I didn’t remember the grinding stress; I remembered the lunches with friends. I forgot the frustration of a failed project but remembered the bond forged in trying to save it. Those colleagues became lifelong friends, business partners, and a support network.

My brain, in its infinite wisdom, had turn my memories into an instagram reel, curated with all the positives of my experience. It wasn’t lying, it was healing. It was selecting for the memories that were useful for the person I am today, the ones that built me up, not the ones that burned me out.

This is the healthy paradox of our flawed memory. It isn't a perfect recorder; it's a storyteller. It weaves a narrative from our past, and that narrative is forged not by cold fact, but by desire. The desire to make sense of our journey, to find meaning in the struggle, and to allow us to move forward without the full weight of every old pain.

I should know this better than most. I once plastered a line on the first page of my book that feels truer every day:

Memory is a reflection of time, only it is forged by desire.

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