My earliest memory is sitting on the stairs inside the first house in which I lived. I remember my brother was crying, and I must have been around 3 years old and anything he did I would do too so I was crying also, I don't think that I really understood why. I distinctly remember staring at a light fixture that we had in our foyer and as tears welled up in my eyes, my perception of how the light looked would change (the shape of the emitted light would look starburst as i squinted my eyes). It made more sense to focus on the light than to focus on everything going on around us. This was sometime after my parents had gotten separated and my dad had moved out of state. In this memory, he had come to visit me and my brother. I can hear my parents yelling at each other in the background while my brother and I sat on the maroon carpeted stairs, running away from our parents problems, and crying.
What sticks out in particular about this memory is that it's my first memory of an argument (besides that between me and my brother over a toy or something... they must have been irrelevant) and the feeling that it left me with. Also, I no longer live in this house so rather than replacing that memory with other memories of me growing up, I can only associate a few memories with this place (we moved when I was 4). In terms of my personality, I still get upset when people argue (as do most people) however, I have few issues with confrontation - I'd like to think i'm pretty overt when it comes to my intentions. And by no means do I follow in my brother's footsteps anymore - what he does is not necessarily the right thing for me. In fact, when I was a bit older I refused to do anything that my brother wanted to do.
