30 Days Journal - Day 17
I am a terrible journal-er. As an exercise to become better, I decided to do a 30 day journal challenge for myself. Just like during my quarantine, I am using Isolation Journals for daily journal prompt.
Prompt: Everyone has a place that they call home. This place has undoubtedly shaped your worldview, for better or for worse. In your mind, go back to when you were a child. Now identify someone—maybe you know them, maybe you don’t—who, if you’d grown up with them, would have changed your worldview. Write a letter to them welcoming them to your “home.”
Welcome to the home I grew up in for 11 years of my life. It is probably the longest I’ve live anywhere. It is also a place I feel most peaceful. I still visit it every week when I am in Canada because it is where my parents live. My parents have changed a lot of it over the years through maintenance and updating but my bedroom remains the shame. It still has my high school exam schedule on the wall with some art works I’ve done from elementary school to middle school. Even after I moved back in after university for 2 years, I have not made any design changes. My room looks like a children’s room so much that when my house was broken into, my room was left untouched because they thought I was a child.
I think my room is where I want to keep my childhood intact. I think as adults we move too fast and before we know it, we are already approach that time to become parents our selves (not me but speaking about my friends). Sometimes it is hard to reflect on what has changed. When you leave pieces of your childhood behind, it does a really great job in putting your life in perspective. How much you have grown, how sometimes you thought it was a big deal even though now looking in hindsight it barely made a blip in your life scale. Sometimes it is a good reminder that I haven’t tried hard enough in certain areas, for example the grade 6 poster I have created for French class serves a great reminder how my level of French remained the same. Meanwhile, the art sketches I thought was great from middle school reminded me how much I have improved with my shading and lines over the last few years. It gives visitors a glimpse of what kind of child I was, how creative I was (lot more creative than I am now). The anime posters on the wall also show how much of an otaku I could have been. I still have a DBSK (TVXQ) poster, and to be honest it was the first and the last time I spent so much money on a celebrity was for DBSK. When I see young girls showing their dedication for their fandoms, I smile because I was in the exact same boat a decade back (yes I am so so old).
I totally did not write a letter to welcome someone new to my home. My home is not significant but I want to share what is the most meaningful for me in the home I still enjoy going back to every week.