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Your memories will try to trick you.

I thought about that as I was driving down a street near my house the other day, when I spotted a father walking down the sidewalk, his young daughter slung over his shoulder like a sack of coal he was hauling out of a mine. Her hair bounced along on his back and she looked thrilled. They had been out on a stroll, and she'd asked for a ride: That was the story the image told me.

Adorable, I thought, for a second.

But wait. What was that look of resignation on the dad's face? Did I recognize that parental exhaustion myself, that feeling of being utterly defeated, that giving up and resorting to carrying your offspring as a literal burden on your back?

Did I ever.

Another lie from the past: At my son's soccer practice, a different parent watched in horror as his toddler dashed into the parking lot, a look of pure joy on her face as she scrambled for the car.

Kids are so funny.

Less funny was the father's expression as he frantically scanned for approaching cars threatening to squash his daughter flat.

It took me a moment to remember that helplessness, the flabbergasted internal outcry of "Am I the only one whose children are constantly trying to kill themselves?"

Of course, I wasn't, and neither is that dad, but like the pain of childbirth, the fear has passed, leaving only the positive remnants behind.

I also like to volunteer in my kids' cafeteria at school, handing out trays of pizza and reminding the students to grab the fruit and veggies they almost invariably disregard. After the rush is done, I can sit in the lunchroom and look around. It always surprises me how sad some of the kids look. You see, no matter how many times I'm reminded, I keep forgetting the innumerable disappointments of childhood.

A friend no longer wants to sit beside you.

The teacher reprimanded the class.

You took a test and did poorly.

For small people, these are not small disappointments.

But they're filtered to adults through the gauze of our deceptive memories. The only things we can see, looking back, are the invisible work by our parents to smooth our paths, the simplicity we now mistake for joy, the tasks that we -- as adults -- now realize had very low stakes.

We don't remember how, at the time, nothing could be more serious than our troubles. And we don't realize that one day, we will likely look back on our troubles now with misty fondness.

When I saw the writer Fran Lebowitz on a speaking tour recently, she recounted a time, decades earlier, when she'd been featured in Vogue magazine. Seeing the proofs of the pictures for the piece, she called the editor, Anna Wintour, in horror about how she looked.

"These pictures of me are horrible," she remembered saying.

But now, as a 75-year-old woman, Lebowitz said, if she woke up looking as she'd appeared in any one of those photos, she'd be thrilled.

One day, if Lebowitz makes it to 100 years old, she'll probably look at pictures of herself as a 75-year-old and think: "What a dashing young whippersnapper."

It's just the way things go.

Getting older gives us more memories to deceive ourselves about.

I'm trying to remind myself of that as I hit the time when I'm starting to see the wrinkles in the mirror, and the gray hairs on my head outnumber the black ones.

These are the fewest wrinkles I'll ever have, I tell myself.

I envision myself looking at pictures of 2026, thinking, "You thought those were gray hairs? I'll show you gray hairs!"

The problems I have with my kids are the easiest ones I'll ever manage. One day in the not-too-distant future, there will be teenagers in the house, and then after that, I will contend with a house emptied of children entirely.

Those thoughts might be depressing, and if I'm honest, sometimes they are, but they're also freeing, in a way. Just as Current Me is jealous of Past Me sometimes, Future Me will be jealous of Current Me, too. So, instead of dreading what's to come, I can live it up and relish a life that will one day be enviable.

The past may be nothing more than a magician trying to pull one over on me, but I'm getting better at spotting the card up his sleeve.

We all might play the fool from time to time. But it's never too late to remind yourself that, no matter how old you are, nostalgia is a trick that's even older.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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