Ode to what we leave behind

I can’t eat M&Ms anymore without thinking of my grandparents. Sometimes, I still feel as though I can reach out and touch the cool, crisp workbook pages smudged with chocolate residue. I learned to count on that book, matching the different colored M&Ms with the pictures on each page.

When I reflect on my childhood memories, I see them as if they exist behind a golden film; each and every moment seems brighter and fuller than what I see around me today. I can remember the slow ticking of the miniature grandfather clock in the living room and the sun peeking through the window as a sliver of light. My life wasn’t run by the different color tabs on a Canvas calendar. My hours weren’t counted and enumerated by the time I had to spend on homework and assignments. The only thing I was worried about was sneaking more M&Ms from the bag. 

These days, I can’t open Instagram without my algorithm presenting me with videos reminding me of my childhood. Each flutter of my hand against the screen shows me a core aspect of my upbringing. I see the Minecraft worlds that exist now only in my mind. I remember the Skylanders game that I used to play in elementary school. I recall the hot feel of the plastic slide and the soft earthen smell of trampled wood chips.

I think that nostalgia for childhood is a recurrent theme of the human experience. However, it has never been as prevalent as it is now. Social media has presented a new medium to relate to a collective of people who went through and share experiences with you simply by their birth year.

This is especially true within the context of American social standards. The modern collective American consciousness has placed such a high emphasis on the need for individualism and success at any cost that people have come to see life as a constant race. Our society is built to encourage lifelong engagement in the rat race of competition in jobs, housing, schooling, activities, memberships, etc. Modern culture has become a paradox wherein the goal of life is said to be happiness, yet to achieve that happiness, one must engage in endless competition that ends only in the exit of retirement. We put our lives in terms of have and have nots, compare ourselves to the value of others and envy because that is what we are told matters most. Media has perpetuated the idea that every waking hour of one’s day should be spent pursuing something more. More gains at the gym, more activities on a resume, more connections on LinkedIn, more subtle mentions of the accomplishments we want envied but not flaunted. We seem to have everything but enough. 

All this is to say that I miss the simplicity of being a child. I miss the days when life was dictated by the amount of light outside, not the grade on a page. I miss elementary school activities like field day, P.E. and the Christmas pageant. I miss the time when my biggest worry was going to basketball practice or doing a one-page math homework sheet.

I remember lying in bed one night in sixth grade, praying that I would wake up and be in college because the hard parts of being a middle school and high school student would be over. My life has always been framed in terms of the next hurdle, the next challenge and the next expectation for myself. Now that I am here, I wish I had taken the time to notice the small, simple acts of childhood — getting frozen yogurt after school, playing video games in my pajamas and reaching for the last M&M.