younger

A couple days ago, my uncle came into my room asking for a key to the same dresser we both had. 

A key? I asked. 

I opened the top drawer of my dresser which had a lock on it. I never locked it and started rummaging through all my old scrapbooks, journals, and yearbooks. I haven't opened this drawer for years, I thought.

I took out all my heavy high-school yearbooks and found the old key taped to the side of the drawer. As I handed it to my uncle, something caught my eye. 

It was a pink, 5x10 spiral journal with My Melody on the cover. Flowers flooded the page and I had colored the pictures on the cover with different colors. 

I open the journal to the first page and my 8-year-old handwriting stares back at me. 

As I start to read this old stack of papers, a sense of nostalgia, sentiment, and love rushes through me. I smile because I feel young again. 

And by young, I mean young like a newly born baby because I am only 22 right now.

It's so cute when I look back at this page because it's my very first entry and gosh, I am still the same. Except that I am not eight years old anymore. 

Reading my fifteen-year-old entries reminds me of who I am. I remember that at such a young age, I had so much compassion, more than my little body could handle. Reading my entries reminds me of all the emotions I feel when I observe the world. Reading these entries reminds me how profound my emotions are, at such a young age I was already recording my thoughts and feelings. 

Here I talk about my parents and how they weren't like what I observed with other American parents on TV. I thought my parents weren't in love but they were just in love in a different type of way, an Asian type of way...

Here I talk about what I like to do the most lol. Even at twenty-two, I still love to read, write and draw. And I always talk about how I do those things more than watching TV, still to this very day. 

Here I talk about how daughters seem to be more caring about their families compared to sons. At a young age, I wanted to support and care for my family. It's so funny that I was already talking about having a child at 8 years old because still to this day, I've always wanted a baby. 

Looking back at my journal, I feel more compassionate towards myself. Because every negative, mean, and insulting thing I say to myself today means I am beating the little, innocent girl who wrote these notes. 

Reading these journal entries makes me feel like I am hugging my little self. As if I went back in time and listened to her, as if I held her hand and hugged her. It feels like therapy and cathartic reading these old pages. It reminds me to practice being kind, compassionate, and sweet to myself so I can do that for others. 

These entries confirm who I am at such a young age, reminding me of what I want to accomplish and what I value. 

It makes me think, how on earth can anyone be so mean to a sweet little girl? So every time I get angry with myself, critiquing myself, yell at myself, I think about this little girl who wrote these sweet entries, reminding me to give myself some love that I so dearly deserve.