By Angie Molina

My Superpower: Honorable Mention

I remember my life not in fragments or vague impressions but in scenes, dialogue, textures, and color. When I was barely two, my mother was pregnant with my little brother. I remember the day relatives came over to see her. I was wearing a yellow matching dress and skirt, playing with my favorite doll, when someone said, laughing, “Está muy grande ya.” My mom was in a pink shirt and jeans, sitting on the couch, glowing. I remember the rough texture of the sofa against my legs, the way sunlight poured through the window, and the smell of the house. Years later, I found a printed photo of that moment, but I didn’t need it. I already had it archived in my head, filed away like a memory I could always walk back into. 

That’s my superpower: memory. Not in the way people expect — ask me to memorize a list of vocabulary terms and I’ll struggle. But you can give me a moment, one rich with detail and emotion, and it stays with me forever. I used to think that this was normal. That everyone could remember what they wore on a Tuesday afternoon in 2009 or what their brother said at a birthday party in 2016. I thought everyone could recall the exact price of a desk five months after buying it.

I didn’t realize how unusual it was until the day I bought my best friend’s cat a gift, a tiny Kirby hat she had posted about in an Instagram story over a year earlier. Back then, we were just mutual followers — strangers. I saw the story, and without realizing it, tucked it away. A year later, while walking through a store, I saw the hat. And just like that, the memory surfaced like a short film playing behind my eyes. I didn’t even hesitate. I bought it. She was shocked. “How did you even remember that?” she asked. I didn’t have a good answer. I just did.

It was then I began to understand that my memory isn’t something I have — it’s something that defines me.

Sometimes it’s beautiful. Like a form of time travel. A smell, a sound, a passing phrase, and suddenly I’m walking in the Colombian mountains again, the air thick with sun and dust, laughing with my cousins as we make our way to feed the bunnies with wildflowers. Or I’m in my grandmother’s kitchen, warm arepas sizzling on the stove, her voice wrapping me like a hug. These moments rush in unexpectedly, and I’ll cry from the beauty of it all — tears not of sadness, but of a strange joy that aches. Because I remember exactly how it felt to be there. I just can’t go back. 

Other times, it’s heavier. There is no filter, no softening over time. When grief arrives, it doesn’t come politely. It shows up with every detail intact — the smell of hospital disinfectant, the soft but final sound of a coffin closing, the words I wish I could erase. Memory doesn’t always ask for permission. It just shows up, whether you are ready or not.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it. Even the pain is proof of a life fully lived and remembered. My memory is how I love people. It’s how I understand them. I remember the things others forget — the birthday they mentioned once in passing, the dish they said reminded them of home, the exact way they take their coffee. It’s in the details, the little things, that I find a way to let them know: I see you, I remember you, and I carry you with me. 

People say time moves quickly, and that life passes in a blur. But for me, it never blurs. I see it all. I carry it with me. And while that can feel overwhelming, even isolating, it also feels like a kind of miracle.

Because memory, at its best, isn’t just about the past. It’s about the meaning. About the connection. About what we choose to hold onto, and what holds onto us. My mind is a museum, and I am the curator and also the child wandering its halls, in awe of what is kept alive.

That’s my superpower. And I’m finally learning to see it for what it is — not a burden, but a gift. About what I do to show love instead of a simple quirk.