If you’re writing a memoir or even thinking about it, you’ve probably noticed something curious. The memories that return aren’t always the biggest ones. They aren’t neatly labeled important. They’re often small, oddly specific, and persistent.

A moment that lasted seconds but keeps resurfacing decades later.

Someone you see who resembles your first love.

A familiar aroma when you walk by a restaurant.

At first glance, memory can seem random. We forget dates, timelines, and entire chapters of our lives, yet remember the sound of a cookie sheet coming out of the oven or the sound of a door closing. But memory isn’t random like a coin toss. It’s selective. It follows a logic that’s deeply relevant to memoir writing. It doesn’t preserve events because they were historically significant. It preserves them because they were felt.

Research tells us that memory and emotion are physically linked in the brain. When something carries feeling like love, fear, shame, or belonging, a different system becomes involved. Not the part of the mind that organizes facts,  but the one that retains feelings. In simple The brain remembers what the heart responds to.

That’s why, when writing a memoir, facts often blur while emotional truth stays vivid. You may not remember the year something happened, or the exact sequence of events, but you remember how safe you felt. Or how small, seen or unseen. Those feelings are not pretty details, they are the spine of the story.

This matters because many writers hesitate writing or worry that if they can’t remember everything accurately, they shouldn’t write at all. But a memoir isn’t a confession or a sworn statement. It’s an exploration of experience and meaning. Emotional memory is the material.

Shaping your memories is what memoir is really about. Not what happened exactly, but how it changed the way you moved through the world afterward.

For memoir writers, this can be a relief. You don’t need to chase every missing detail. You don’t need to justify why this memory matters. The question isn’t, “Do I remember this correctly?” It’s about writing it as you remember it with honestly and vulnerability. That’s what touches your reader.

So if you’re sitting with a memory that won’t let go, one that feels small, incomplete, or oddly vivid, pay attention. It may be asking to be written, not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s true in the deepest way memoir allows.

Enjoy!