I don’t like to admit it to myself, but my childhood is officially over. I am no longer a child who is able to experience the world with a distinct sense of innocence, nor am I unfamiliar of the burdens that come with adulthood. I am a college student who is working hard day and night to earn her bachelor’s degree. I have a job, a steady source of income, a sense of motivation, and a dream that I have yet to fulfill. When I think of all my responsibilities and all the obstacles I have yet to overcome to get to where I want to be in life, I can’t help but miss the memories of my childhood and think of where I have already been. I have been thinking a lot lately about all the things that I took for granted as a child, and I’m sure that others can relate, as well.

1. Disney Channel. There is not a single thing about the 2000’s Disney Channel that I do not miss; I remember the Cheetah Girls sing alongs and the High School Musical dance alongs. I remember seeing “I’m Selena Gomez and you’re watching Disney Channel” air before my favorite shows, as well as the song collaborations that would air between shows like “Send It On” and “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.” Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, That’s So Raven, Phil of the Future, Kim Possible, and so many other shows played a major part in my childhood. Songs like "Year 3000" by the Jonas Brothers and "Boys N Motion" from That's So Raven are songs that can never be forgotten.

2. Scooter Highway and Parachute Day in gym class were the only activities that could put a huge grin on my face in elementary school. I remember rolling my scooter across the entire gymnasium, stopping constantly to fill up on gas at pretend-gas stations and watch the movie Elf at the pretend-movie theater. I remember waving to my friends as we passed each other on our way to our destinations, as well as planning out where we would meet up before the class ended. The only thing that could compete with Scooter Highway was the Parachute; I loved running from one side of the parachute to the other before I got trapped underneath, and I would become mesmerized when we would all sit inside of the parachute and form a tent. I would give anything to play Parachute one last time.

3. Valentine’s Day in elementary school is definitely something worth remembering. Before the day arrived, a list would be sent home with the names of all the students in the class. Why? So that the students could prepare Valentine’s Day cards for every single person in the class! It was always so much fun buying 30-pack Valentine’s Day cards with my mom; it would be so hard choosing between Harry Potter, Disney characters, and Barbie. The people I liked the most in my class would get cards with the best quotes, such as “To a Rockin’ Valentine!” and “You’re Neat!” while all the kids that I didn’t like would get a simple “Happy Valentine’s Day” card with no flair. Walking around the classroom and handing out the cards was always a fun experience, and going home with a handful of cards from my classmates was also great.

4. The Nintendo 64 was still popular as I was growing up, and this is the one memory that makes me feel ancient. Playing Mario Kart, Legend of Zelda, and especially James Bond 007 Goldeneye was an obsession; at every single family event, all the kids, including myself, would take turns playing the Nintendo 64 with the larger than necessary remotes. We would blow into the Nintendo cartridges because we were too young to know that doing this did more harm than good. The Nintendo 64 is nothing more than a distant memory, especially for the new generation, but it is a gaming system that I will never forget.

5. Playing Mash! For a young kid, the game of Mash is nothing less than a professional fortune-teller. We would write down two of the best and two of the worst options for each category and pray we got lucky. Living in a mansion married to a celebrity who didn’t even know I existed with 15 kids in Tokyo seemed like a plausible future because the game of Mash had predicted that it would be so. If I was desperate enough for a certain outcome, I would cheat and celebrate the exciting future I wasn’t supposed to have!

6. Writing notes to my best friends! This is something I did all the way up until high school because I enjoyed it so much; I would write long notes to my friends, fold them up, and write something cute on the front. We would take turns writing each other notes every other day, give them to each other in the class we had together, and then wait until we were apart to read them. We would write song lyrics, draw pictures, use crazy colors, and write about all the things we didn’t have time to tell each other when we were together. Writing the notes took a lot of effort, but receiving them was definitely a reward in itself. Most people don't save the notes that they have been given, but I still have every single note from elementary school to high school stored away in a special place, even if the senders are no longer a part of my life.

7. AIM Messenger: the ultimate source of communication for a middle schooler in the 2000’s. I would come home from a long day at school and run straight to the computer to update my AIM status and IM the friends that I just spent all day with. The usernames seemed cool at the time, but we all realize now how embarrassing they were; I genuinely thought I would become a “futureroxstar” when I was eleven years old, but now I think about it and cringe. When someone was upset about something, they would write the most depressing song lyrics they could find online as their AIM status, and then when they changed it to “:D <3” five minutes later, everyone knew that they got the attention of the person they were hoping for.

8. Book fairs and Scholastic were literal godsends for kids like me; RIF stood for “reading is fundamental” but I always thought it should have stood for “reading is fun” because reading was always a favorite pass time for me. The excitement would overwhelm me as my class would walk in two straight lines to the multi-purpose room where the annual book fair would be held. We would each get two free books, and the decision of which books to choose would be taken very seriously. The entire class would have to wait for every single person to get their books, so my class would sit in a corner of the room and begin reading their books while I would still be browsing around the room. Not getting the books I wanted would not be the end of the world, however, since there was also the Scholastic book flier that would be handed out in class every one to two months. We would circle the books we wanted and wait patiently to receive our order.

9. Seven Up, Four Corners, and Who’s Missing were the most fun games to play as a kid. Seven Up was the game that literally pinned people against each other; everyone would put their heads down and thumbs up, and seven people would walk around the room and choose someone’s thumb to push down. If you played the game without cheating, you would have no idea who chose you and would have to guess, but we all know that every kid has cheated in Seven Up at some point in their lives. I remember having to keep a poker face while my best friend guessed whether or not I was the one who chose her, and smiling widely when she guessed wrong and I was safe. Four Corners was a game of luck, and that was something I never had; the corner I chose to stand in would always be the corner that got called, and Who’s Missing was the easiest game since I would make a mental note of where each person in the class sat. The days when we played these games in school were the days we got to embrace our childhood and live it out to the fullest.

10. Recess. Of all the memories from my childhood, recess is one of the most precious. I would walk with my class outside, set my lunchbox down in one corner, and run off to the playground like I was running towards my freedom. I would meet up with my friends that were in other classes, and we would play on the playground, slide down the slides, and compete to see who could swing the highest on the swing set. Feeling the wind in my hair as I would swing was the most liberating feeling in the world when I was younger, and getting me off the swings was the most difficult thing for a person to do. We would play Duck Duck Goose, Freeze Tag, Simon Says, basketball, and jump rope. All of the gossip would come to light during recess, but for me, recess wasn’t about anyone else; recess was about using my time to feel open and free and relaxed. Playing with my friends and getting fresh air was something I looked forward to every single day.

It may not have felt like it at the time, but my childhood was truly remarkable; the day-to-day things that I did not think twice about when I was experiencing them are now the things I yearn to have back. The Silly Bandz, the special TV carts that teachers would roll into the classroom when we would watch Bill Nye the Science Guy, celebrating field day with the rest of our grade with games like tug-of-war and the potato sack race, chasing the ice cream truck on a hot summer day with my parents, and dressing like I was a walking talking Aeropostale billboard in sixth grade are all things that I remember. It’s depressing to think that each and every memory I have stored from my childhood is slowly being replaced by something different; the Nintendo 64 I grew up with has been replaced by the Wii, AIM Messenger has been replaced by Twitter and Instagram, and my videotapes of Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella have been replaced by Netflix and Hulu. Hannah Montana and Lizzie McGuire have been replaced by random shows like Dog With A Blog, and the three-way phone calls I would have with my best friends have been replaced by group chats on iPhones. Either way, I am proud to say that I am part of the generation that grew up riding bikes and catching fireflies in jars, and that these memories will be a part of me for the rest of my life.