do memories expire?

I toss and turn as I try to convince my brain to let me go to sleep. Finally, I give up and remove the covers off of me to hit the lights on. I huff, looking over at my younger sister and debate whether I should wake her up or not. It's 5 am.

I wake her up.

"What?" She yawns, looking over at my troubled face. I tell her that I can't sleep for some reason so we end up randomly talking about our lives, specifically our childhood.

"Remember Mohamed?" Judy asks, laughing hysterically as she reminisces over the memories she shared with our old neighbour, also known as her childhood crush. She talks and talks about their play dates and movie nights with a soft smile forming on her lips.

"You reminded me of Tristan." (that's not his real name but let's pretend it is) I mumble, images flashing before my eyes of the blonde boy in the little tux sitting in the chair next to me, talking excitedly about the end of year play we're about to perform. The boy I liked during 3 years of my childhood. I couldn't stop myself from ranting about how we used to spend our lunch time exchanging snacks, or how he's the one who introduced me to yoyos. 

"He discovered football though." I laugh, telling Judy about the months we spent not talking because he was too busy playing football all the time. Then, I remember that one trip where he left his friends to walk me to the farm so we could feed the horses. It was the time he told me that his sister's name was the same as mine, and that's why he liked it so much. Since then, we met up once in a while behind the stairs so we could escape our friends' teasing.

It all ended though; I transferred to another school and that was the end of my childhood crush's little story. 10 years later, I pick up my kindergarten's yearbook and show his picture to my younger sister.

"I can't believe you drew this." She laughs, pointing to the tiny crooked heart the child version of me drew next to his face. I laugh too. I was a stupid kid who had a crush on another stupid kid. Picking up my phone, I go to his Instagram account (yes I found him on Instagram a year ago) and go through his present pictures as I wanted to know how much he changed 10 years later.

"I don't think he still remembers you." Judy comments once I reach a throwback picture of himself, the him I spent my breaks with.

I get emotional, knowing I'm probably the only one who's carrying these memories around. Maybe it's just my strong memory.

I wonder. I wonder with tears in my eyes, does he even remember me as I remember him? Does he remember me as the girl he laughed with, always talked to and spent his lunch breaks with when he was 5,6 and 7 years old? Or was I just a vivid memory at first that faded into a fog over time?

It's insane isn't it? Feels surreal that there's someone out there that you passed by their life, spent some years with and yet your memories together didn't make the cut since you didn't have an impact. So that's the rule I guess. If you didn't have a strong impact on a person who was in your life, their brain will erase their memories of you over time.