This week, I posted a simple question on social media:

“What memory reminds you of your playful side?”

I smiled at the responses.

One man remembered attending an erotic ball naked.

Another friend recalled touchdowns and strikeouts from his days as a pitcher.

A girlfriend remembered dancing into the wee hours.

And I have memories like that too.

What struck me wasn’t the memories themselves.

It was the smiles.

I could almost see them forming as people remembered moments they hadn’t thought about in years.

I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting the naked one.

But why not?

No judgment here… ever.

One of my own memories involves chewy Tootsie Rolls.

I’d stick them across my teeth and flash people my brilliant blacked-out smile. There’s a picture floating around somewhere. If I ever find it, I’ll have to share it.

In the photo, I had Tootsie Rolls stretched across my teeth, a smile as big as Texas, and what I think was called the devil horns hand gesture back in my rock ‘n’ roll days. My hair was cropped and feathered on top and longer in the back—which I suppose they’d call a mullet these days.

I remember giggling because people never expected me to do something so silly.

These are probably memories you haven’t touched in a long time.

And yet they stayed.

Out of forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years or more, these tiny moments somehow cling to the sides of our minds.

Not the entire decade.

Not every Tuesday.

Not every birthday.

Just these.

Why?

I don’t know.

But I wonder if it’s worth getting curious about.

Maybe they stayed because they have something left to show us.

Maybe they remind us that we’ve always been more than our responsibilities.

Maybe they reveal parts of ourselves we haven’t visited in years.

Or maybe they’re simply invitations to smile again.

What I wanted to do this week wasn’t really to ask a question.

It was to remind you that you’ve lived a lot of life.

And somewhere among those decades are thousands of moments you’ve packed away and haven’t thought about in years.

Maybe even decades.

Not because they weren’t important.

Life simply kept moving.

But every now and then, one of those memories taps you on the shoulder.

And maybe it’s worth pausing long enough to say,

“Oh, yeah…

I remember her.”

Because you haven’t always been this version of you.

Who else have you been?