Where I used to be is where I want to be.

These streets used to be my ultimate playground, where my gimmicks and antics were only limited by my imagination. I could be anything I ever wanted to be, all it took was a slight effort of my mind, and I'd be off wandering astray for hours on end. Mom would have to come out of the house every evening and yell at me to come inside for dinner. Ah yes, these were the times long forgotten, and yet, strangely enough, these were the times that I missed the most when life grew tough.

Every evening, I would arrive home from school around 4 in the evening and quickly give myself a shower. I couldn't wait to get outside and spend my entire evening frolicking with my friends, friends of which are now long gone, lost under the curse of miscommunication and awkwardness. We'd spend our evenings playing anything under the sun, from basketball to an imaginary game of adventure under the drizzling rain. Sometimes, we'd even take our bikes out and speed down the slope outside of our houses. Wind whipping across our faces, it was a time of bliss, where my only worries was whether or not I had homework that needed doing.

The festive season brought even more joy for me. This was the time when I'd be able to take my adventure and playtime to the next level, and where I'd be able to participate in games where our numbers could easily reach over 20. We would meet in the same house every single Chinese New Year, and have these awesome parties where the adults would entertain themselves and we'd have this HUGE street all to ourselves. And that's where we went wild and got ourselves hurt.

We'd scraped our knees, we'd get burned by fireworks, we'd stepped ankle-deep in dog crap, we'd break our arms and noses, but most importantly, we'd have fun, clean and pure fun. The kind of fun where no one felt insulted and no one got hurt, the kind of fun where everybody was welcomed, even if you were the new kid on the block. The kind of fun I want to experience again. As children, we were our true selves, no social masks, no pretending, just us and a butt-load of memories.

But then, this terrible thing happened. It was as if we all slowly morphed into something completely different. Gradually, we stopped playing those fun games we used to play, we grew boring. And by golly, I realized the same thing was happening to me, I let my true self go, under all that peer pressure and social drama, I forgot who I truly was, who I was meant to be. We started putting up barriers and masks that weren't our true selves, they were what society wanted us to be.

In high school, my dilemma only got worse, the friends I made there were so fickle that sometimes I'd forget their names entirely after we changed classes the next year. Of course, there were the exceptional few that stood by me through tough times, the people that I'm proud to call my friends. Still, I never truly had fun after that, it's like we all forgot how to enjoy ourselves, how to just put down our worries and just let it be. Was this all part of growing up? Was I doomed to feel this way forever? And that's when I discovered that my true happiness didn't come from out there, it lies within.

Yea, yea, I know it sounds mighty corny and all but when you take the time to ponder about it, isn't happiness just a feeling after all? And feelings come from us. With that in mind, I know I'll have fun this year, just a different kind. Even so, with everything said and done, there's nothing in the whole wide world that could replace what I felt as a child. My life was truly authentic in every sense of the world, and I hope that my life can return to what it used to be. Happy in all it's glory!

And with that, I can honestly say, if there's one thing that I want from a magical genie in a lamp, it'll be my childhood, care-free in all it's splendor.