I have a ridiculously extensive memory. I remember being a baby. I don’t have a “first memory,” because most of them are there. I can see a picture, hear a song, or smell a perfume, and remember where I was standing, who was there, and what was said—all in greater detail than is really necessary or healthy.

The Minnie from my first Disneyworld. I stood in that spot while my mother photographed me. It had rained. The socks were tight on my legs. All the houses looked the same. We went back in two years, when Daniel was two. He was afraid of Mickey Mouse. During that trip, my father’s stepmother had just gotten a pedicure and as she sat on the couch and I walked between it and the coffee table, I stepped on a toe. Her toenails were red. She was cross with me. They had the most fabulously gold playing cards and I sat on the floor next to the dining room table and played with them, wishing I knew a game, and avoiding a nap. Their toilet seat was padded.

It was a hard day for everyone. Probably most of all, it was a hard day for my mom. But also so happy. Lynn and Leigh and I got ready together and Lynn offered me some perfume—but I didn’t know what to do with it. It was not in a spray bottle, and that’s all I knew. I waited until I saw Leigh dab some on her neck. Leigh did my hair. I felt so pretty.

I’d dressed myself and my mother was on the phone at the kitchen table. I’m holding a Bible my grandmother gave me in 1984. I had the hat on, but mom tied it. She laughed and I laughed and she photographed it.

Just kidding. I don’t know what I was thinking when that was taken. But I do remember a few months later.

In 1987, I went to Disneyworld for the first time. I got this ginormous Minnie Mouse doll that still sits in my bedroom in Georgia. I fed the ducks with my dad in the wind in Florida and I remember trying to climb futher up his chest because I was convinced the ducks would capture me in their duck-billed haste to devour all of the bread within our souls.

My first sibling, my sweet brother, was born in 1986. I always used to think that when Daniel got to be x years old, he’d be an adult and I’d think of him as such. Twelve, 13, 15, 21, etc. And still, he’s my baby brother. And this week, I learned that the man who killed Destiny Norton was born the same year as my brother. Now I don’t know what to think.

My first concert was Shedaisy, 31 May 1999. So much has happened since then.

My first car was a Chrysler New Yorker. It sat about 20. So hurry up and bring your jukebox money.

My first room in Utah was in a townhouse in Taylorsville. I lived with three other girls and a dog named Sadie. Pretty much after the picture on the left was taken, the floor suddenly grew piles of crap, seen in the picture on the right, that didn’t go away until I moved out … on my own.

My first apartment on my own was a one-bedroom on Capitol Hill. It was ginormous, for $380/month, except the landlord liked to walk into my apartment unannounced and leave dirty work gloves on the couch. Next to my laundry basket. Full of clean laundry. Underwear laundry.

And now I’m paying $475 for no air-conditioning and half the room, but with a money-devouring puppy named Ethel. My first.

Me: Tey, what do you want the world to know?

Teya: Um. How much I love you?

Me: What else?

Teya: Um. I’m gonna go swimmin’ today. And I’m gonna come home. And I’m gonna … wait, wait … I’m going to eat lunch at the swimpool. Do my chores. I don’t have chores on Saturdays, so I’m not gonna do my chores.

Me: Tell me a story.

Teya: Once upon a time, there was a horse and its name was Misty. She was a very famous horse and then, one day, someone captured the very famous horse and she had a foal and they kept the foal and they killed Misty. And her baby’s name was Star Capture. And they kept Star Capture, who was a girl and then—hmmm—she was famous, not her mommy, ’cause she was dead. And then Star Capture had a baby and its name was Rainbow. Then they killed that one’s mommy and then Rainbow was famous! And then one day, Rainbow died. And they didn’t have any famous horses, so they found Misty.

Me: I thought Misty was dead.

Teya: There’s another Misty. There’s two Misties. And they looked and they found her, and they caught her.

Me: Was she sad?

Teya: She was very sad. Then, they put Misty for sale. Then a person bought her and the two kids were sad. And the kid got bucked off because she only liked the other two kids. And he sold it to them. And she was her mare. And she never bucked them off. And it was a very happy ending.

The end.