Oniisanbomber's Blog

You and Your Friends Went Outside to Play One Last Time

13th of April, 2025

Recently I had the chance to visit the town where I grew up. It isn’t exactly my hometown, as I wasn’t born there. I only spent about three years there. But out of all the towns and cities I lived in throughout my life, it is that little town of around 10,000 people that I always find myself thinking of when I think of “home.”

While walking the single short shopping street where I used to walk and bike around with my friends decades ago, I thought of this quote I saw on social media before.

“At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and nobody knew it.”

I tried to recall the last time my friends and I played before we finished primary school and went on to attend different middle schools. I couldn’t remember. There were specific events throughout the three years we spent together that I remember. Mundane, unimportant days where we ran around on the grass trying to get our kites to fly (we never got them to fly), or walking around town, hoping to find money lying on the ground so we could buy Yu-Gi-Oh! cards (we never found any money).

Why do these mundane things stay in my memory?

After that I moved away and lost touch with them. Social media didn’t exist back then. We sent letters to each other for a short while, but that eventually stopped as we moved on with life, grew older and found new friends.

I did see services being advertised that promise to help you reconnect with old childhood friends. While I feel tempted to use those services, I also feel it might be better to let these beautiful memories remain as they are. It is these memories that can give us some of the strength needed to face the misfortune adult life can throw at us.

I look at photos of my younger self and I wish I could warn him that things are going to be tough after the next move, but do not fear, you will have the strength to weather adversity.

Or perhaps it’s better to not know. If we knew how much we have to go through, we may crumble from despair. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

—Oniisanbomber