Do you ever miss coming back home from school and playing online games on your computer? Or maybe having chicken nuggets with fries and lots of ketchup for dinner.
We are getting older, all of us. Unfortunately for some, we grow up more and more every day. We are no longer kids who play around in the park and get their hands dirty with things that can't even be recognized. We are adults who study or work, or maybe even both. We are people with responsibilities that go way past simply attending school or getting good grades. We have big problems that may sometimes seem too hard to solve, and all we want to do is just call our parents and ask for help, or even for them to solve it for us. But part of being an adult is making yourself responsible for the mistakes you make, not calling someone to fix it for you. All of this is extremely stressful, so sometimes we just want to stop thinking about all that, at least for a while. I found out that one incredible way to do that is to think about the past, but not in a sad 'I miss those days' kind of way. I mean to think with nostalgia, but also with joy and happiness. To remember the good old days and see how far we have come. We are closer to our parents' age at that time than to our 4-year-old selves. So own up to it. I promise you it is not that bad to be an adult.
I always remember that, as a kid, I used to do a lot of extra activities after school. I did swimming lessons, yoga, drums, violin, dance, tennis, and so much more. So the days that I didn't have anything to do, or when some practice got canceled, I loved to get home earlier and drink hot chocolate milk with cookies while watching Disney Channel or Nickelodeon on TV. I liked having a lot to do; I was always an active kid, but I also loved to be able to spend a whole afternoon watching episodes from my favorite shows.
Another thing that I loved about the 'good old days' was to go on the weekend to a friend's house and play with Barbie dolls. This may seem like something really common, but we had made a twist to it. We were obsessed with Greek mythology at the time — yes, we were nerds. So we used to pretend that the dolls were the Greek gods and play that they were fighting over some drama at Olympus. But well, that was just us. I'm sure no matter what generation you are, your childhood had some good times that are definitely worth remembering. So next time you are overly stressed over some work project or a toxic manager, stop for a second and think of the past. You need to realize that the happy little kid you were is still part of you, and being proud of how far you have come will bring a part of it back.