We Forget Until We Remember
We are born with magic
Before we have the language to explain it, before anyone has told us what’s “real” and what isn’t, many of us can see things; energies, presences, a sense of spirit moving around us that feels as natural as breathing. Not as a special talent, or anything rare. Just as part of being alive in a body that hasn’t yet been told to stop paying attention.
I remember having that kind of awareness myself, long before I had words sophisticated enough to explain it. It was just there, the way a room could feel full even when it looked empty, the way I could sense something about anyone before they said a word. It felt normal. I didn’t give it a second thought.
Then the unlearning began.
You tell a parent what you saw, and they say there’s nothing there, gently, maybe even lovingly, but firmly steering you back toward what’s “normal.” You don’t want to be like your crazy uncle. You mention it to a teacher or a friend, and the response shifts. Confusion, as if you’re stupid, and a little concern until you get called to the headmaster’s office/detention. The word crazy (again) hanging in the air even when no one says it out loud. Then slowly, without any single moment you could point to, you learn that what can’t be measured isn’t real, what can’t be explained shouldn’t be spoken about, what makes people uncomfortable should be kept quiet. To sum it up - SHHHHHHHHH!
So we become isolated so we stop talking about it. Eventually, we stop noticing it at all. Not because the gift disappeared. Because we buried it to survive, to be believed, to be accepted, to not be the odd one out at the dinner table or on the playground. Children are remarkably good at reading a room, and most of us read the room correctly: this isn’t safe to talk about here.
I think that’s the real loss in all of this. Not that the ability was fake, but that we were taught to distrust ourselves so early, and so thoroughly, that we forgot we’d ever had it in the first place. The forgetting wasn’t natural. It was trained into us, one dismissive comment at a time.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe. Remembering is possible.
It doesn’t happen all at once. It comes back in pieces triggered by something big enough to crack the walls we built as kids. A loss maybe, or a bad relationship. A dream too real and too specific to explain away. A feeling about someone or something that turns out, unmistakably, to be true. Slowly, what we once dismissed as “just imagination” starts to feel less like fantasy and more like memory. Like something we’re recovering rather than something we’re inventing.
I don’t think I gained a gift later in life. I think I finally gave myself permission to remember the one I’d always had.
I say this not to convince anyone of anything. I know how this sounds to the version of me that used to roll her eyes at exactly this kind of writing. I’m not asking you to believe in energy or spirit or any of it. I’m asking something smaller, and maybe harder: think back to who you were before the world told you to stop noticing. What did you see? What did you feel? And when, exactly, did you decide it wasn’t real?
Maybe you never decided at all. Maybe it was decided for you, quietly, by every adult who needed you to be easier to explain.
If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear about it, the moment you knew something you shouldn’t have been able to know, or the moment someone convinced you that you didn’t. That’s usually where and when the remembering starts.