I have this one particular memory from when I was around two or three years old. It definitely didn't happen, or at least it's highly improbable, as it no doubt would have turned me into a local legend (and put my grandmother in jail). The weird part, is that the memory has developed in my mind, or rather, my memory around the memory has developed, over the years.
In my head I have a clear image of me and my Grandma visiting Deep Sea World. We walked past the tanks of exotic fish, stood on that weird horizontal escalator thingy and watched the eels and sharks and stingrays, probably fingered some poor unsuspecting star fish, pointed delightedly at the sea lions, then went for some nice calming tea and juice.
The cafe at Deep Sea World in North Queensferry has glass walls, they let you look out at the giant tank where where they keep the fish. Obviously this is separate from the actual sea, but in my mind it wasn't. In my mind that bit of water might as well have gone on for eternity.
Cut from me looking through the glass, to me actually being through the glass. Somehow I’ve managed to get out a door and I’m in the middle of the sea holding onto a red buoy. A crisp packet floats past (I'm not really sure why that particular detail has stuck with me) and I can see my Grandma just sitting there on the other side of the glass, and the open door that I fell out of, and I’m panicking because I know there are sharks in here and she’s not even doing anything, just sitting there, smiling.
That’s how I see that memory in my mind. Just like that. I’m not sure if my Grandma has ever even taken me to Deep Sea World, never mind left me in the middle of their shark tank.
According to my parents however, that memory used to be slightly different. According to them, when I was around five I had a habit of telling strangers that my Mum had pushed me into the Forth (the name of the sea next to Deep Sea World). Apparently the details, including the red buoy and the crisp packet remained the same.
I however, have no memory of this alternative version of events, and no memory of ever telling it to unsuspecting strangers, which is weird, because I never did fall into the water at Deep Sea World, but I did tell people it had happened. Which means something that never actually happened feels more real to me than something that definitely did.