I'm too tired now to give a nice explanation, but probably playing with Legos with my dad as a kid. Either that or waking up on a REALLY stormy summer morning and going to grandma's house.
My 13th birthday in 1993 where I got a SNES bundle with Super Mario World and Mario Kart and two controllers, McDonald's for lunch, and the we watched the Lion King in theaters. Doesn't seem like much, but we were a poor family. Best day ever.
Strangely ... my nightmares. I have about three nightmares I remember from super young childhood (like I don't know how young because I basically don't remember anything else from that time). I remember them super vividly and they're super weird especially given how young I was. Stuck with me ever since.
One was basically a zombie movie (I must have seen one on TV or something) where people are slowly being transformed into zombie like monsters, and the nightmarish punchline was my dad turning into one.
Another was being chased by an ape along a pier which forced me to fall in and start drowning to realise a hoard of spiders were swimming down into the water to get me (haunting final image that one).
Another one was my newborn brother in a pram being let go from the top of a hill and me running as fast as I can to catch him.
Waking up on a cold winter’s morning to the smell of bacon, coffee, biscuits\gravy, and warming my back with my siblings next to my grandparents wood furnace. Every once and awhile one of those smells will take me back. It’s really hard to put into words. I kind of lose my breathe and get this impending doom knowing those warm memories will forever be a distant memory. Creating new memories is what keeps us moving forward but those days of comforting innocence will never be relived.
Oh my god, this one hits hard. The smell of bacon being fried in a skillet STILL gives me memories of when dad would fix some because he was up super early and needed something to do.
If it counts (I was 17) probably the last summer before college. I hated my life growing up, and I don’t think I have ever looked forward to anything more than moving away to college and being on my own.
As for a younger memory, probably getting off for summer vacation and being able to just watch tv and do nothing all the time.
I have no idea about "favorite", but a nice memory that immediately comes to mind...
My dad was a minister, when I was little we lived in the "parish house" behind the church. Decent sized church. I have great memories of going up in the attic of the church - all sorts of catwalks and different "rooms". And once my dad sent me all the way up the steeple, into the really narrow part with ladders & trap doors that was hard for an adult to get in. (I think he was having me check if there were any leaks?)
Always loved weird nooks in large buildings. Attics, cupolas, forgotten rooms, etc.
Like others here it has to do with my Grandmother - one of my earliest memories was me, about 2, riding in the front seat of a car, and looking over at my grandmother driving and she smiled at me.
This was in the 1960s so kids could ride in the front seat and I probably wasn’t even wearing a lap belt, certainly no car seat.
My grandmother stopped driving not long after that, so I never saw her drive a car except for that one time and I can still picture her face smiling at me.
My grandma would make Mac and cheese from scratch. My wife eventually tracked down the recipe from my mom and now she makes it for me every year on my birthday!
I would spend many summer mornings at Grandma's. Helping her make lemonade. Sitting on the patio listening to the cicadas. So now whenever I hear a cicada, I flashback to her house. ❤️
Playing the game cube version of re4 at my friends house, eating fries pizza and all the sugary shit we wanted.
I could never do that in my house my family was all work and no play.