Timelines and memories

Last week we did an activity. It consisted in writing down our timeline, from the day we were born to our present life. I had such a hard time remembering everything. By the  time we were supposed to be done I had written down my birthday and about 5 other major things that happened in my life, the rest was blank. 

The next part of the activity was exchanging our timeline with the person we knew the least. So I teamed up with Diego. He started telling me his timeline and I was impressed at how many things he remembered. While he was telling me about his life, I started remembering some more of mine.

After that, we got back together with the whole group and the person who listened to your timeline had to tell the highlights of your life to the rest of the group. Diego did a good job with my life, made a mistake or two but thats ok. It was very weird having someone else tell your story. I guess they see it in a very different perspective from yours. 

After everyone was done, one of my classmates realized that there are about 7-9 years that mostly no one remembers what happened (more or less from 3 to 12). This is so true. I mean, we all have some memories, but how do we know that they really happened the way we remember or that our parents or someone close to us told us the story and then we just imagined it all?

I guess we will never really know which memories are real and which are made up.