There is no way to determine how to make a memory, or how important that memory might be to the people experiencing it.

Recently, I told my mom that I made “breakfast” for dinner, a treat I remember from busy nights during the years when we were growing up. I made eggs, sausage, and bacon to the delight of my husband and daughter.

My mom was surprised that it had been a favorite. “Those were the nights when I was either too exhausted to cook or we had to make the grocery money stretch a little further that week,” she told me. “Those were the nights we thought we had failed.”

For us kids, pancakes and eggs for dinner–that was fun and special, giving of us the sense that we were breaking the “rules” by having breakfast for dinner.  We had no clue that it was a cheap dinner option for two tired parents.

Those “breakfasts for dinner” were some of my core childhood memories.

Core memories are a concept made popular with the 2015 Pixar movie Inside Out. In the movie, Riley, a pre-teen whose family uproots their life in a cross-country move, is guided by five core emotions personified in a kind of inner control room of her mind. Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear each preside over the creation and filing of all of Riley’s experiences into long-term memory, and five of the most important of these are her “core memories,” which take the form of brightly lit, lively islands which are meant to be key components of Riley’s identity.

The idea of the movie is that there are certain (“core”) memories that trigger permanent or semi-permanent foundational pillars of our personalities. I read that the the filmmakers consulted with psychologists and neuroscientists, but the concept of “core memories” is loosely scientifically based.

Mental health research shows that memories, particularly traumatic ones, absolutely do play a huge role in our psychological foundation. I’ve had memories triggered that are buried in the deepest places by something as simple as a song or a particular smell.  Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon anyone? Or for another example, the sound of a particular elevator in the NICU where Callie was born.  Are these memories integral to who I am?  Are they what define me as a person?

There is no limit to the number of memories that might become integral to who we are. Nor are we shaped exclusively by memories made in childhood. I can list out a myriad of fears from childhood that I’ve overcome or habits and preferences that I’ve changed, all which are such huge aspects of our personality that we often use them as a shorthand for our identities.

I grew up terrible with math.  I got a C in fractions in third grade and was (good naturally) teased about my inability to figure out how to divide up a pie accurately. I struggled in math during high school, often going to tutoring sessions and had to take college algebra twice. Don’t even get me started on Business Finance.  There were tears. I came to believe that I was not someone that was good at math nor in turn, good with managing money.

This was a belief I held about myself well into adulthood, despite years of leadership roles in large companies where I did manage large amounts of capital, became debt free, and had the ability to do calculations for my diabetes management quickly in my head–all of which should’ve shown me otherwise. And then this month, a coworker told me I was super financially savvy after I’d made and shared a spreadsheet of how we paid off our debt.

The comment floored me. Like literally stopped me in my tracks.

Because despite behavior that constantly proved otherwise, my self-image was still one that was formed in elementary school.

How was that?

Because my struggle to navigate the complexity of third grade math had caused such an emotionally charged time for this over-achieving, gifted and talented, first born daughter, I internalized these memories as part of who I am, rather than simply an experience I went through.

As a mother, I am deeply aware of the potential for my actions to influence Callie and who she will become. Almost on a daily basis, I mess up. I lose my crap over a wet towel left on the floor (for the one billionth time though in my defense), I can’t regulate my emotions and end up saying something harsher than what I should, or I just am tired and can’t show up in the way I want to as a mother. I feel a pang of guilt that my impatience or inattentiveness in any particular moment will somehow color my daughter’s understanding of who she is. I am, in these moments, also making decisions about who I am, deciding that I am failing as a mother.

I worry that her core memories will be those of pain.  Of hospitals and doctors.  Of loss.  Of sadness.  Of children making fun of her.  Of heartbreak.  Of things and experiences she’s lost out on.  I worry that she will remember the tears on my cheeks and the hitch in my voice.  I worry she will remember the time I threw up in the trash can when they pulled the drainage line out of her chest.  I worry that she will remember all the times I was not strong enough for her.

So I overcompensate, telling her how creative her animations are, how nurturing she is with Jack, calling her an Olympian on the archery range, pointing out her empathy when helps our older neighbor pull up their garbage cans. I set up elaborate adventures, over the top birthday parties, and make big plans for us to bond and have special moments we’ll remember forever. She tends to humor me for these intentional moments, unmoved and busy with whatever else catches her teenage attention span at the time.

But then, in the moments when I’m least expecting it, she reflects back to me the world as she’s actually experiencing it. In a recent car ride to school, she announced, “Mama, you remember when I was little and you used to do nose kisses? I loved that.  I love that you always hold my hand, you always snuggle me before bed, and how you used to read me a million books before bed.  That’s why you’re the best mom ever.”

If I can choose a core memory, one to believe in, to be a pillar of who I am, I’ll take that one.

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