ABSTRACT
The previous chapter contains two memories in which the own body is discovered, as it were. The experience of one’s own body or body parts also has a central role in the sudden experience of individualization set out in other memories. A 72-year-old woman wrote the following about this:
“I remember precisely where and when I discovered that I was I. I was changing clothes behind a chair. That is how we did it back in 1934. I suddenly ‘saw’ my own body with arms and legs. ‘Those are mine. That is me, ME, ME. I want to never forget this’, I thought. This gave me a strange feeling. I was looking at my mother and thought: ‘And she also has an I, her own I. But I am eight years old and I can still enjoy playing. But when I am eight twice, I no longer can.’ This seemed like a terrible thing to me.”
This girl was not alone, and there was no special trigger. It was a day like any other, and she was doing a routine action, the daily act of getting dressed. The realization of ‘this is my body’ made her happy, as is the case in the other experiences discussed in this chapter. Only the realization of the transitionary nature of her age cast a shadow. ‘I will no longer be able to play when I am sixteen’.