ā… you donāt know a thing youāll miss ātil itās behind youā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Best Days, Alessia Cara (1:47)
It was a regular rainy night on campus when I was drifting to sleep while listening to āBest Daysā by Alessia Cara. Tucked comfortably in my bed, out of the blue, so many of my childhood memories just came rushing to me. I donāt even know what triggered it. Maybe it was the weather, the earthy smell after the rain, or the lyrics of the song itself. Regardless, I know feelings of nostalgia in the fast-paced world we currently live in are considered cringy and redundant ruminations. However, I couldn’t help but reflect on the time that I had indeed taken for granted back home. Having spent a good amount of time integrating myself into university culture, the realization of a stark disconnect from my prior environment hit me like a truck. I wouldnāt exactly call it homesickness; it was more the feeling of realizing things that Iād never paid attention to in the first place. The longing to get that same time back to bask in its true glory and fully appreciate it was a different kind of pain.Ā
The faint jingling of bells as an ice cream trolley passes me by, the belt of hibiscuses in full bloom covering the path of our park, the comforting smell of the boiling tea in our kitchen, and the sheer joy of my parents letting me buy an extra pack of Jim-Jams from the local confectionary, are all the seemingly miniscule things that I think about so often now. It all leaves me with equal amounts of comfort and dread. A comfort so strong that it feels like a giant hug and a dread that leaves me wondering if things will ever feel the same again. With each passing day, Iām only growing older, thus, more and more distant from that comforting feeling of being carefree. Spoiler alert – adulting is not fun, people! Who knew? I vividly remember voicing my childish angst of wanting to grow up faster and attaining the freedom of an āadultā to my parents, which was always met by my mother profusely laughing and affirming that I was going to miss my childhood years the most by that point. It is at this very moment that I admit that she was, in fact, right, *sigh*.Ā
I remember making my parents accompany me to comic stores every Sunday without fail, winning the glittery blue liquid ruler in the Christmas fete, and running all across the school playground every Wednesday. It is genuinely absurd to me how simplistic the feeling of joy was when I was younger. My dad taking me to get street food with him, my mom knitting sweaters with the yarn of my favorite colors, and my grandma parceling sweets for me every now and then (oh, what I would not give to have these kinds of wholesome moments back in my life!) Now that Iāve grown older, the accumulated frustration of having so many unsaid expressions of gratitude hits like no other. Iām supposed to be a tough adult now after all, one who doesnāt dwell on the past but rigorously plans for the future. Iād argue that this very phenomenon of swinging between the joys of the past and worries of the future is what keeps most of us from truly ever living in the moment. We donāt even realize it until itās too late.
As a matter of fact, I draw a significant part of my creative inspiration from these very reflections. It truly feels cruelly harrowing to think that such a cathartic period in my life has turned into a mere piece of content and that I might never be able to fully replicate the beautiful grit of those moments. However, coming back to that song of Cara which makes me weep like a baby, thereās a lyric where she sings, ā[b]ut the hardest pill to swallow is the meantimeā and all of this nostalgia talk that kept me up the whole night got me wondering about why my present life needs to be this bitter pill meant to be swallowed. Itās not like Iām getting any younger, so why should I restrict myself to the arbitrary expectations of being an āadultā or a āgrown-upā? Where is it stated that the same childlike fun canāt be enmeshed with rigorous adult routines? So, the very next day, off I went to the convenience store to get myself a pack of my favorite Jim-Jams, printed out a few coloring sheets, browsed the internet to rediscover my favorite DIY YouTubers, and got my hands on some of the classic comics and games. And of course, as I type this article out, I listen shamelessly to the mindless 2014 pop music that I initially fell in love with! All of this has made me realize that oftentimes, we are the ones who block our own portals of joy in order to fit in and chase that obscure feeling of being a āmature adultā. When in reality, true maturity is learning how to keep that inner child of yours alive and happy. It truly helps in alleviating the dread that comes with modern-day overstimulation, birthed out of our hectic routines.