Feeling nostalgic

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With summer break coming up I am feeling incredibly nostalgic for my childhood. Those carefree days where everything seemed so easy. The summer was about being a kid. I am now an adult and the summer has lost its magic but that doesn't mean I don't often think about how great being a child of the 90s was. I was practically feral as a child. I grew up in a small town where we had free range. There were few rules, at least that had to be spoken. There were some unspoken rules where we knew to be respectful of our neighbors and not do anything that would hurt or kill someone else or damage someone else's property etc. but for the most part, we roamed the town and did some things that weren't the safest. That said, though there are other things I miss about childhood beyond the freedom of being a child. There are so many places I miss. I miss the big and booming malls, the stores, the restaurants. Back in the day places like McDonald's catered to children. You could have birthday parties at McDonald's and back then that was the elite form of bragging rights. I never got to have a birthday party at McDonald's nor did I ever get invited to one of those birthday parties much to my dismay, but I survived, and I still loved McDonald's even if my family's go-to restaurant back in the day was Burger King. I never got to play at the playplace once again to my dismay, because my mom said it was full of germs. As an adult, I understand this but back then I'd stare longingly as other kids got to play in the plastic tunnels and in the ball pit. I remember the general feel of the 80s and 90s restaurants. I remember the old Pizza Hut look, I remember how Taco Bell used to look. Taco Bell was a teenage haunt for me. I used to stop in after summer school and eat lunch there. I remember all of the colors and I also remember the lack of colors, I feel the 90s either was full of bright neon colors or it was brown and there was seldom an in between. I remember how Pizza Hut had a book it program and I loved earning my free personal pan pizza and getting so excited to go there, I used to read like crazy to earn those pizzas. I also remember getting free soft pretzels from Hills when I earned the Outstanding Student award at school. It was always a great excuse for my mom to buy the rest of the family pretzels. I also remember renting movies from local movie rental places and then getting a pizza, back before we had a Blockbuster in town, we had a few other movie places we rented from, and yes, eventually Blockbuster. There was always something so exciting about getting pizza and a movie. I remember renting Toy Story on repeat after it came out before my mom finally just bought it for me. I feel like as we millennials grew up a lot of the restaurants we went to as children also grew up. These restaurants lost their childhood appeal and became more modernized. A lot of us millennials are starting to feel nostalgic for our childhoods. I feel like while we have become adults a lot of us seem to have forgotten how old we actually are. I constantly feel like I'm only in my early 20s before realizing I'm nearing 40. Mentally I feel like I will always have my youth but physically is another story. I miss being a child because it represents a time before things got hard and everyone in my family still got along and were together. Now I feel like we have all drifted in different directions and have found we don't necessarily even like each other. We struggle to find common ground a lot of the time. My childhood was a time when there was more togetherness and I find myself missing that a lot. I miss seeing my family as a family instead of strangers. Some of my fondest memories were those where my family was together. Now we all barely know each other. I just miss the way things used to be but I understand life has to go on and things change and that's just the way it is. I can't make people change nor can I make myself into somebody else to benefit them. I think the reason I get nostalgic has a lot to do with the way being a child made me feel. My family was on speaking terms with each other and all of the members were still alive. I miss my grandparents so much sometimes. I miss the way everyone stayed connected. Now despite all of the different ways to stay connected everyone makes less effort to stay that way. It's kind of ironic honestly. It's difficult seeing pictures from the past and knowing so many people are missing now. It's difficult knowing that all of the places I loved so much growing up are now gone. Time stops for no one. Enjoy everything and everyone you have while you still have it. Time changes so many things. You learn to adjust and move on but that doesn't mean you never miss the way things used to be. Those places from our childhood were more than just places they were memories where things happened that helped shape who we are today. Maybe they were just places back then but when we think back they represent places where families connected and that's what I miss most.