An Ode to Childhood
By Jamie Lim
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
|
How does time manage to infuse the sweetest memories with bitterness?
the gentle drumming of droplets on my window “listen, it’s sprinkling,” my mother would whisper sprinkling meant pouring was only a few thunderclaps away soon the chalk on the driveway would fade and i would tell my sister about the old man snoring my mother would run downstairs and open the shutters near the front door peek outside to make sure the garbage bins were closed my sister and i would skip downstairs pouring meant no scooters, no bubbles, no hula hoops instead barbie dolls went to malls in their seventeen-person families and sat criss cross applesauce on the benches outside the shops eagerly sorting their purchases into kraft paper bags just like we did on the occasional saturday those were the best saturdays coming home with loads of new clothes instead of cereal and bananas usually weekends meant kroger, h-mart, costco, target until the car trunk was packed with groceries and to top it all off we would drive toward the church and buy us a little grace, too i liked seeing my friends more than praying we would coordinate our logins on animal jam so that our avatars (i was a seal named pretty blossom horse) could meet and in the school yard we played tag, hide and seek, hosted the wedding of two squishies madly in love with each other and they lived happily ever after the end. Gone are those days. Now rain means mud-splattered shoes, damp clothes, an umbrella that loves inverting and embarrassing me in front of the cars waiting at the stoplight. Then the stupid useless thing drips puddles in my room, staining the carpet dark. I miss my sister. We never spent more than one night apart, and now we wake up in separate states. I want to proudly say that she is growing up before my eyes, but I cannot. It is hard to see someone through the blurred screen of a FaceTime call struggling to maintain connection due to poor Wi-Fi. I no longer skip down the stairs. Instead, I pace impatiently in front of the elevator while it stops at floor seven, six, five. I took myself to the mall to enjoy some retail therapy during Black Friday last year. I made a few brag-worthy clothing steals, and the thrill of it was almost enough to make me forget that my new college friends had stood me up earlier that day. I eat whatever I want on campus. Packaged ramen noodles that I brought from home, French fries and chicken tenders from some restaurant on Uber Eats, ice cream and blended coffee beverages and chocolates. It’s nice eating whatever I am currently craving, but sometimes I miss my mother’s cooking. And eating with my family at the dinner table. Now I eat with AirPods in my ears, YouTube sitting across from me. I still play Animal Jam occasionally, but I have a new avatar, one whose name actually matches the animal. I have no idea where those squishies are, probably buried in a cardboard box in the corner of my closet. Dusty and stiff from unuse, but still bound together, wrapped in the veil we made using Scotch tape and Kleenex. When my mind serves me those memories, I take them into my mouth and turn them over and over on my tongue. They are sweet at first, but when I chew, there is a bitterness that gradually coats my teeth. Even after I swallow, the bitterness remains. Still, the spoon clatters on the plate, scrapes it clean. I want another mouthful. *This poem was previously published in SeaGlass.
|
Jamie Lim is currently an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying chemical and biomolecular engineering. She aspires to be a physician-scientist and bring hope to patients with chronic diseases. In her free time, she writes poetry, designs houses on The Sims 4, watches African wildlife documentaries, and dreams of bringing home a Doberman puppy one day.