Happily suffering from leap brain

Today, I discovered the most amazing thing about this leaping business. (Note: I have done no scientific research whatsoever.)

So, I've decided -- through a lot of thinking and with no real knowledge -- that leaping triggers some part of the brain that we gradually lose hold of as we make our way through puberty.

Here is what led to my un-scientific revelation:

Yesterday, I went to see the same hairdresser I saw just before I boarded the plane to France. And when we started to talk, I immediately remembered everything she'd told me the last time. I knew when she was married, how many siblings she had, where they lived, what she would study if she went back to school, and more. As a journalist, my job is to remember facts. But yesterday, I was on fire.

I think that's because this leap has turned me back into a pre-teen. The good part of being 12.

Back then, I remembered everything. Probably because I was only trying to hold a handful of conscious years in my brain, but also, I believe, because everything had so much more significance then.

At 12, my parents told me I was at the age where children start remembering family trips. But I also remembered how many times my brother had fallen off the coffee table and hit his head, the names of all the kids who I had ever been to school with, the plot of every book I'd read and the hockey-jersey number of every boy who had called our house.

By 19, however, in my first year of university, I remember thinking that I was going to have to be more selective about the information I chose to put into my brain because it wasn't all going to fit.

Up until that time, I'd thought life was somehow being recorded or saved. But in reality, I'd begun to discover, every action, person, event or image could actually disappear after a while. My vague idea that everything that either existed or happened caused some quantifiable ripple that could later be referenced – in the same way that rings can be counted on a tree trunk - evaporated.

Experiences, people, places, facts... have all gradually been falling out of my brain since then, making room for new ones.

Yesterday at the salon (with ample time to think and very few recent magazines to read), I realized that I'd stumbled on to one of those rare times where the memories stick.

I've been feeling alive. In the last few months, I've been able to remember how things smell, how they taste, the weather, and information people tell me even if it at first seems unimportant. I'm awake, just like I was when my memory first kicked in.

I hope this falling in love process lasts for more than just a few months. This mini superpower is cool.