An acquaintance just posted a pic of them being absolutely delighted with building a snowman and I realized I haven’t done that in years. It also made me think about things I enjoyed doing as a kid, and (whether it be from mental issues or not) I can’t quite recall anything that brought me joy.
So I’m really just curious, what are other people’s happy memories of their childhood? Might help me remember mine, and “worst” case I get to enjoy some good memories second-hand!
Edit: Couldn’t be happier to have asked this question, not only are there some wholesome little stories, but I could also finally remember some of the good times of my childhood again!
When I was in early elementary school, my dad would take me & my sister to the local mall. He would get us all books at the Waldenbooks - he would get a scifi pulp novel, I would get a Garfield book, and my sister would get a Calvin & Hobbes book. Then he’d take us to a restaurant there in the mall, and we’d have a nice leisurely lunch while reading our new books.
Things I loved but don’t do anymore: Climbing trees, building snow forts, making elaborate toy castles. Falling asleep on the floor in a sunbeam next to the cat.
Things I still do: eat chocolate chips out of the bag, walk barefoot in the grass, take mediocre pictures of random things that feel really profound at the time but are immediately forgotten
My childhood home had a skylight, and I would use the sunbeam like a blanket, with just my head poking out into the shade. It was wonderful.
Christmas morning at grandparents when everyone was done opening presents sitting alone in a corner building a Lego set with no worries about responsibilities or time constraints.
When I was a kid my parents would rent a beach house at the end of summer on the Oregon coast. Their friends from college would usually stay there with us, in the evening we would have a campfire on the beach. The smell of a campfire almost always brings back memories of those days even now that I’m in my 40’s.
running around with super soakers
Skipping stones over the local water reservoir.
I sucked at it, but it was still time away from my sisters.
Being able to play sports (baseball/football) with neighborhood kids. No organizations like today. No parents interfering. No one drove you to the field, you walked there. Everyone got along and there were no overweight kids because everyday you got plenty of outside exercise.
The house I grew up in had two trees in the front yard. We would tie string (probably a thin nylon rope) between the trees and hang sheets/blankets on the string, creating a “fort”. All the neighborhood kids would hang out there in the summer and we had so much fun pretending it was a fort, spaceship, bus, etc.
Christmas dinner when my grandparents would join us, miss them loads
I had (have), 3 friends, Bill, Billy, and Joey. The 4 of us used to ride our bikes from just after breakfast until dinner. At least 10 hours a day. No helmets. No phones. Just cruisin’ around. Countless hours of fun. From poking road kill with a stick or buying 45s at the mall record store.
Friends: Other than being outside with friends playing football, soccer, baseball, street hockey, on bikes, playing around creeks, playing in the woods, we played a lot of video games. We had some absolutely wonderful times playing multiplayer Bomberman, any PvP fighter (you name it, we played it), Super Smash Bros, etc. we’d watch each other play all manner of RRGs too. Yes kids, I grew up with the “classics” when they were new!
Family: Long talks around the dinning room table at holidays with family and friends, yearly OBX beach trips, yearly vacations to see family in FL. Christmas’ and birthdays with family.
I’m blessed/lucky to have a family with low drama and we all get along well. I’m also blessed/lucky to have grown up with some really great friends and we still have strong relationships. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Biking to the local pool to spend an entire day. Low-dive and high-dive until my eyes couldn’t take any more of the chlorine. Take a short break where I’d use my allowance to buy a choco-taco or big ol’ ice cream cookie sandwhich. The days when I never thought twice about my protruding little boy belly being visible. I was friendly with one of the life-guards, who was real hairy so we called him wolf-man. I’d get up on the diving board and ask him what trick I should do next, and he’d call it out. Haven’t been able to find a good high-dive at a pool in a long time.
Days when I’d venture out into the neighborhood, going door to door trying to collect enough kids for a proper game of kickball. One day one of the kids dad’s came out and played with us, and it was such a blast.
Biking to my school during summer break to play on the playground, finding a huge dumptruck load of mulch had been deposited on the blacktop, and I was able to kind of bike up one side and hop off. Spent hours on that mulch pile
Rollerblading in the neghborhood, using my older brothers skateboard ramp to do tricks. One time I went door-to-door, telling my neighbors that I was going to do a rollerblading trick show, and if they wanted to come outside and watch it would cost them a dollar. Think I made like 5 dollars, had some nice adults come stand at the end of their driveway, watching me do jumps off the ramp for like 7 minutes. I finished on a 360 spin with a grab to a patient golf-clap that seemed at the time just short of thunderous applause.
I am sitting on a blanket on the lawn under the weeping willow tree. Mother comes out, a surprise. She’s holding a plate and hands me two things of matza pizza and says she made me some. I thank her and she goes back inside. I am munching the matza pizza.
I used to love digging holes in the beach and unearthing hidden treasures like cigarette butts.
Looking out the window of a car as I was driven around town as a kid. I wondered at the layers of rocks in road cuts, the vastness of forest and what creeks and secrets it held. I would see someone in passing and picture myself as if I were them; mowing the lawn; walking in that store; speaking to someone else. I would imagine whole narratives based on the details I saw around them at a glance.
I was coping with the boredom in my own ways. That abstraction is one of the most valuable to me. The thoughts that streamed from staring out a window of a moving car are a big part of the base of the tree that became me. This is the mental structure that has kept me grounded through a decade of social isolation from physical disability and being forced to reinvent my sense of self nearly from scratch. It is how far back I had to go to redefine myself anew within the reality of my physical constraints. So while it may seem entirely mundane, I have been forced to reflect and redefine myself in ways most humans never confront.
There are many facets involved here, like how I am still able to talk about my past without causing myself harm by thinking about what I have lost, or how I’m purposefully turning within myself, because any other tangent of thought leads to vengeful anger at what was taken from me. In my cascade of abstract thoughts, my most pleasant and happiest is not really resolved to a specific moment or event. In truth, I can recall the exact moment I was looking at a rock cut on the side of a road and realized the layers were deep time, but it was more of a subconscious back burner thought than a solid moment of understanding. All of this abstraction has a root in that thought. It is an actual place in my mind, a small hillside rock cut on a highway between Cleveland and Chattanooga Tennessee with a limestone formation of very old rock. That abstraction has likely saved my life thus far, and continues to redirect me into my curiosities in moments of profound loneliness, boredom, and a lack of purpose. The only thing I cannot overcome with this thought is the burden I have become for others. Baring the thought of being a burden, my abstract curiosity; wondering about the world; exploring by turning within; is my basis for continuing day to day. I find great value in this abstraction and that makes me happy in the present.
