I miss being little. Everything was so much easier then. I had no significant responsibilities, no pressure, and no school stress.
My days consisted of barefoot cartwheels in the grass, sweet mango lassies, and swimming lessons in the fading afternoon light.
I fell asleep cuddling my mom under mosquito net canopies, or listening to “Quelqu’un m’a dit’ if my parents were out for date night. I took baths in a red bucket just big enough for a petite 6-year-old with her knees folded to her chest (the shower was too scary). I collected shards of shattered glass behind the school gymnasium, which my friend and I called our secret treasures. I read stories on our yellow balcony overlooking a sea of rice paddies. I accompanied my dad to the grocery store just to get a Chupa-Chups lollipop at the register.
These were the simplest of times. Back then, my greatest challenge was pulling a comb through my tangled hair or remembering my times tables. How quickly things changed.
Besides Spongebob, I grew up on practically extinct shows my fossil of a Dad made me watch instead of like Disney Channel or something.
My favorite one was MacGyver, (NOT the new one with Lucas Till) which is an action series about a guy who can ‘improvise’ his way out of any situation. Instead of combating danger with weapons like you’d expect, he uses his ability to make gadgets to save himself. To this day I still think the premise is really unique and overall it’s a creative show.
Another much more popular show I watched was the A-team. Again, not the newer movies but the 80’s tv series. It’s also an action about a group of ex-military guys who help people in need and try to clear their name from a crime they didn’t even commit. I remember loving one of the members of the group, Murdoc, who was just this really crazy, goofy guy.
Then there are all the detective shows: Columbo, Magnum PI, Monk, Psych -even Perry Mason- you name it, I’ve seen it. My Dad and I are detective show connoisseurs. He tried to get me to watch cop shows, but they were never my thing (Adam-12, CHiPS).
There was a lot of Sci-fi too, I think Star Trek was my first of these old shows (or Rocky and Bullwinkle). I’ve seen both the Kirk and Picard series, but the former is more memorable/nostalgic for me. There was also Time Tunnel, Twilight Zone, My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, etc.
There is more, this is just the tip of my ancient-shows iceberg. There are some really obscure shows I’ve seen. I bet I’m the only person under 50 who knows what the Petticoat Junction even is. Or the Beverly Hillbillies.
Anyway, I’m actually happy my Dad introduced me to these shows from a young age. They really were charming and shaped much of my early childhood.
Children grow up having stuffed animals with them everywhere; to sleep, to play with friends, and even to talk to. The stuffed animal is a staple in one’s childhood.
They come in many forms, from elephants to Donald Ducks, as well as different colors, sizes, and densities. Some are stuffed with more fluff than others.
Photo credit: MVP Plush
Children are not the only ones who have stuffed animals, though. Teens and adults have them as well. As a person grows up, they normally bring or take along a friend with them.
Stuffed animals are sacred, they are given names and special stories that are with them forever. They could be used for emotional support and even as an audience for your singing concert. These items of fluff are so valuable and special to some people that they take it everywhere with them, and sometimes they are so loved that they start breaking. They wear down over time because of all the hugs and kisses given to it.
Stuffed animals are prized possessions that everyone has.
Going back 10 years ago, a 6-year-old blonde-haired girl went into the rabbit shelter in Santa Barbara (that to this day does not exist) with a determination. As she comes into the outside rabbit room, she laid her eyes on hundreds of bunnies. She walked around the shelter saw some cute ones, but not staying more than a few seconds to thoroughly examine the rabbits until she comes upon an odd pair, two brothers one bright white with blazing red eyes and the other another jet grey. She immediately sat down as began to play with the bunnies. His mother seemed shocked because these two bunnies were not particularly young and not particularly friendly. Not more than half an hour later the little girl left with her new bunnies, chewy and sweetheart. Sweetheart, the white rabbit got his name from immediately coming up to the girl and resting his small head on her equally small foot. While the grey one simultaneously chomping on a carrot, moving his mouth in a circular motion made the child burst into laughter. As the girl began to grow, so did the bunnies. Stages of their life passed by quickly. Skipping ahead two years. The girl left her house with one of the Dork Diaries in hand and walked out to the back yard where the hutch sat. She climbed through the bunny door and sat in the wood and chicken wire cage. The bunnies would hop over to her, lay down, and not move until she got up to leave. Every day, she would read aloud to her bunnies, all the way until she graduated the fifth grade. Going into middle school the bunnies became a second priority, but she still fed them twice a day and would do monthly spa days for the rabbits, which they thoroughly enjoyed, until that next summer came and the white bunny that had glowing red eyes died. She held him in her arms for the last time before her dad took him to the bunny clinic. He had bladder stones. That night the not-so-little girl, her mom, and brother sank onto the living room carpet embracing one another in each other’s sadness. The girl had never truly lost anything to that extent before. But life went on. The girl in the fifth grade, about a year before sweetheart died, had gotten two more bunnies. Chewy lost his bother that day, and at 7 years old decided to keep living. As middle-school continued, the girl grew more distant from the bunnies, she became more interested in drama and “life”. She still took comfort in them and would visit them when she wanted to take comfort in something so innocent and that depended on her. Although she loved all of her animals, she would always hold chewy longer and give him extra carrots. She loved the way he would eat them. Although it did not make her burst into uncontrollable laughter, she smirked and watched until he finished chewing. In eighth grade she lost one of the bunnies and she buried him in her yard. She spent the rest of that day with chewy and the other bunny. Chewy looked happy as ever. His jet grey coat was sprinkled with white. His eyelids dropped slightly but his eyes sparkled the same that they did nine years ago when she got him. Now, skipping ahead to the present day. At 10:13 on November 22d, 2020. The girl’s mom comes in and says that something is wrong with chewy. Immediately the girl, who has turned into a young woman, begins to sob. Running outside she sees chewy laying on his side. Shaking. His head hung low as he tries to stand. She picks up chewy as he lays on his side. Turning him over she sees that he has an infection. Putting him down gently and stroking him in hopes to provide comfort to him as he had done for her. Her mom and her get into the car with Chewy. They decided that the best thing to do is to end his suffering. Knowing that a piece of your childhood is dying is something hard to face. Arriving at the 24-hour clinic, she carries the box to the front door. Her mom fills out paperwork as she sinks into a patio chair looking at Chewy. As a man approaches the door to the clinic, she opens the box and gently strokes chewy’s back and says goodbye for the last time. Standing up. Not being able to stop the tears, she hands the box to the doctor. And at 10:55 pm, Chewy and the girl are separated forever. Turning to her mom embracing each other like they had done so many years before with Sweetheart, they drive home. Sinking into a coma of emptiness, the girl thanks Chewy and wishing him the best where ever he may be going. She hopes that he finds peace and that he is relieved of all pain that he felt.
Thank you Chewy for all that you have done for me. You will be remembered and loved forever.
If you are under the guidance and surveillance of parents, then I’m telling you: they are really inexperienced.
All parents are parents for the first time in their lives. What do they know? From reading a book about parenting? Let’s say if they did read a book about parenting and knows how to handle you when you were born, but what if you came out to be a troublemaker that caused all kinds of bizarre situations for your poor guardians… well, now they just have to improvise a way to get you to 18.
Why are parents looking into their kids’ diaries and phones? Is taking a peek into their children’s lives that satisfying? Yes, you may not believe it, but if they love you and support you without dropping you by the orphanage, they are deadly worried about you whenever they get a chance.
I asked my mother, who raised me up all by herself for my father’s absence about the reasons for the odd actions of parents, and she told me nothing I could put on this blog. She can’t explain it either. But I know the reasons.
If life were a tortuous road to Rome, if you were destined to walk for 1000 miles to finally reach the destination, your parents would want you to walk 900 less so you could reach that goal in an easier, safer and faster manner. They want you to surpass them, want you to be better than them. (That is, if you’re not an orphan)
So walk slower, because you only walk to Rome once, and who knows how much longer you’ll have a GPS in life?
She always wanted me to be good at everything, and if not, good at something in particular.
Ever since my childhood, she had been pushing me to be great.
Therefore, under her influence, I signed up for the concert band and the ping-pong ball team of my elementary school. I started doing all these things, and then I just stuck to it for years.
My childhood was filled with practicing tenor horn and table tennis, and I did that for the whole six years of my elementary school life.
Not to brag, but I was placed the third in a city-wide table tennis competition, and after 9 times of examination and evaluation of the China Conservatory of Music, I was considered to be on the highest level of performing tenor horn.
Now that I think of it, I’m very impressed by the old me. It’s amazing what my mother pushed me to do. Now that I think of it, she gave my old life so much more colors than an ordinary kid’s. Looking back, I just think of so much more my mother has taught me, how she would buy bundles of English or math test materials, then make me take them and go through and answers together. I remember her putting a big question mark on the side when there is a question wrong, because I always argued against the answer key. I remember how she made me recite ancient books of poems and passages that the recitation of it to a teacher would have given me a recognition. It meant reciting multiple books of poems and recite them in a single time. She tested me, gazed at me every time when I struggled to find the right words — it was so painful. It was like she knew I had some kind of talent and wouldn’t have been like that to me if it weren’t for that gift I had. Now that I think of how much heart my mother has put in me, I never want to disappoint her again.
Oh, how I love my mother. But now I cannot ever go back, she isn’t always going to tuck me in at night.
Riding on a bicycle should be a very simple thing, but it is extremely difficult for me. When I was a child, I could ride the four-wheel and three-wheel bicycle very well, and I liked to ride around in my neighborhood. I felt myself was as cool as the police riding on his motorcycle.
pc: rei.com
However, I cannot ride the bicycle anymore that I rode when I grew up. I started to learn how to ride the two-wheel bicycle, and it is much more difficult than I expected. This kind of bicycle is totally different from what I used to ride, it has no balance at all. Someone told me that you can get balance when you’re riding. So I was trying to pedal and let the bicycle move forward, and it was quite smooth at first, I even could felt the breeze touch my face gently. But, this condition did not last longer than one minute, I felt that I was just like a clown performing acrobatics when the bicycle started to shake left and right. I was too scared to continue pedaling, then the bicycle started to tilt to one side until it touched the ground. Then I was sitting on the cement floor with a scrape on my knee.
The end of this story is I will never ride any bicycles again, even if it is more than two-wheels.
Before I was proficient, understanding language, my dreams would be primarily in symbols (I wasn’t a very verbal child). Now I’ve never written this down or spent much time reflecting on it, but from around the time I was 3 to the time I was 9 or 10 I would have very odd, indescribable dreams; a single, short line, accompanied by a circle and a square I believe would race around the room I would sleep in while remaining totally silent. And at moments I would hear a deep buzzing that I could not describe, the racing became more intense and increasingly antagonizing while appearing exactly the same. An unnerving simplicity that I didn’t understand frightened me beyond my greatest beliefs and I couldn’t describe them to my family for the life of me, haunting me for years after I stopped having them.
I used to live in a three-story house. To be fair it was a house divided down the middle with a wall so it could house two families, but regardless it felt large to the small child that I was. My house had an area where the stairs, which were all right above each other, and near the basement, there was an entrance to my dad’s office which was leveled slightly below the ground floor of the house but still sheltered slightly from the basement. And in the mornings or late afternoons when things were dark, but not enough to turn lights on, that area would have a shadowy appearance that terrified me. So sometimes, I dreamt that I was standing there, alone, in the early morning, when my parents were still in bed an eternity away on the third floor of my house, I would be frozen on that landing, surrounded by shadows and uncertainty, where I would hear a despaired howling, like one would hear on the Alaskan tundra on a cold winter night, but unnervingly human. And I would be unable to escape that desperate gale-forced cry, and then it would just end.
I like coffee now. I used to always think it tasted like fancy dirt water, no matter how much milk and sugar I’d put in it.
But, I really like it now. I like the deep, bitter taste of it and I especially like the smell of it.
I’m starting to like a lot of those things that I used to consider “adult things”. I like watching the news or reading articles on whether or not organic eggs are better than regular eggs. I like having red wine with my dinner (only when I’m in Germany, I promise). I like waking up early on the weekends, to get as much out of my day as possible, and even take in a pastel sunrise once in a while.
Photo Credit: lovethispic.com
I guess I’ve waited for this period in my life for a long time now. I always imagined that when I’d graduate, I’d essentially be an adult. I’d be mature and responsible. I’d be a little taller at least and my skin would have cleared up and I would know how to do taxes.
Truth is, I’m still getting there. Maybe I won’t grow any taller and maybe I’ll need to work on my maturity a bit, but I’m on the right track. I’m transitioning, I guess.
All this is what I’ve been waiting for, and it’s exciting. But, I like coffee now and it makes me sad, because I realize that, soon, I won’t be able to be a kid anymore.
Over Thanksgiving break, I had to make so many goodbyes.
To my childhood stuffed animals, the ones I didn’t want to let go, but the ones I knew I wouldn’t really take anywhere with me. So, I gave them away instead.
To the pajama shorts my mom bought for me at Walmart in third grade, the ones that surprisingly fit me all the way to twelfth grade. Even though they still fit, it was time to throw them out when they were ripping away at their fragile seams.
To the room I spent weekends in at my grandparents’ house growing up, Now, it’s being remodeled. Things that meant so much to me back then are meaningless now, packed away in stacked boxes.
But there was one goodbye I haven’t made yet, because I’m too scared to accept the fact that now might be the time I need to say goodbye.
And that’s to my dog. When I was in first grade and my mom went to pick me up from school, she told me she had a surprise for my sister and I. The first thing that came to my mind was candy, but when she was opening the back door to the car, I was not expecting my sister to be holding a six-month-old, Rhodesian Ridgeback-German Shepherd mix puppy rescued from the pound.
Now, twelve years later, that dog is still in my life, but so much has changed.
It started with him being by my side every single day.
Then, when I moved away, I could only visit on weekends.
Then, life went on and visits turned into rare occasions when I’d go to my grandparents house. When I’d enter the house, he’d come running up to me, barking, and wagging his tail.
Now, he’s still there, but he’s older. He doesn’t run, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he can’t. He still follows me around the house, though, his tail still wagging. It’s still wagging even when he lies down, but the pain is still there. It’s obvious and it hurts me knowing it hurts him.
Having pets is one of the most joyful and painful parts about life. Because they bring so much joy, so many happy memories, but, also, so much pain when they’re gone.
But, he fought so hard for so long and I know that it’d be selfish to hold on longer. That if he needs to go and it’s his time, then he should. He should know that he was the best dog I’ve ever had the privilege to have.
I didn’t say goodbye. I gave millions of kisses and hugs, but my goodbye was temporary. It held a promise that I’d be back to see him again, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that promise. I don’t know how long he’ll be around and I don’t know how long it’ll be until I visit again.
I’m so scared to say goodbye, so I won’t. I’ll say I love my dog. I’ll say I’m thankful that he lived with me throughout my life and that he is so strong for fighting though he doesn’t have to. And that he’ll always be the best dog, my dog, no matter what happens.
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