I lost my childhood diary

Now, these pages that held the innocent stories of my childhood are gone.

I remember one of my first entries discussing my first experience at Disneyland. Considering the fact that I was 3 years old and stood at a little over 3 feet, this entry was communicated through a drawing, most likely of what I interpreted as a princess.

As our means of transportation to Southern California, my family and I took a road trip using our family car. I vividly remember the excitement and anticipation that overcame me as we backed out of the garage of my childhood home. The drive felt like an eternity, and every second felt like six hours, from what I can recall. However, from my parent’s perspective, the words “are we there yet?” exited my mouth every five minutes.

Now, this similar anticipation overcomes me as I await my college decisions that are projected to come out within the next month. Identical to my continual questions during that road trip over a decade ago, the topic of anticipating college decisions alongside my continual questions will without fail come up during our conversations around our dining table.

As I await these decisions, I have reflected that the next six months will be the last months of my childhood. The last months to telepathically fill the final entries of my long-lost diary. When I wrote these diary entries as a child, I had the constant anticipation of wanting to grow up faster: to excel into the next grade level or fantasize about the day I could drive. Leaving for college resembled the ultimate milestone I strived to achieve. Now that I am approaching that milestone, I yearn to pause the exponential growth.

As I reflect, there are myriad things I have taken for granted throughout my childhood: the scenery upon driving down Interstate 280, the blossoming of the cherry trees on my street every February, and walking into my sister’s room. However, the ultimate thing I took for granted was my opportunity to learn Mandarin.

As a child, I had the privilege of attending aftercare programs and Sunday schools that taught me Mandarin. Of course, as the ungrateful child I was, I didn’t recognize this privilege and refused to take advantage of these opportunities. In fact, countless entries in my diary were dedicated to expressing the unnecessary hostility toward these programs. To me, such programs prevented me from running around on the playground after school like the rest of my classmates. To me, being associated with the language was an embarrassment as I witnessed the mockery of random phrases as a means to replicate Mandarin.

Sometime around the beginning of high school, I gained motivation to relearn my Mandarin. Understanding the advantages of being bilingual and wishing to communicate with my grandparents, I began immersing myself in the language. I began consuming Mandarin media, whether that be songs, TV shows or attempts of reading Instagram posts written in Mandarin. Most importantly, I intentionally began conversing with my parents in Mandarin to practice for improvement.

When I pack my bags to leave for college, will I still have these opportunities to practice speaking Mandarin with my parents? Will I lose the motivation to continue learning the language that, at one point, was the only language I knew how to speak? Of course, the conversations I do have with my parents will still be in Mandarin. However, their presence will decrease upon moving out of my childhood home.

A part of me agrees with the inclination I had as a child to grow up. Another part of me is realizing the need to cherish the last couple of moments before leaving my childhood home and closing this chapter of the book.

Amber Chia is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.