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Home Media
Nov. 24th, 2021 04:34 amAt my parent’s house there’s this cabinet filled with old media junk. It’s been the same me whole life, with CDs and DVDs and cassettes all thrown sort of randomly in there, although each one is precisely labeled. I was digging through there while pretty high today trying to find CDs for burning me and Corey’s freshly finished album onto (long story) and quickly became distracted by all the archival family footage. I made my mom load up some of the CDs on her laptop and we looked through some videos of me in 2006. It’s weird looking back on that footage now since I feel so disconnected from that little kid. My mom commented on the video nostalgically, with the same love and pride she had for that cute young version of me. It was kind of funny and endearing.
I like looking back on old stuff like that. Anything that predates me having a smartphone is mostly organized in a vast library of physical and digital media that my parents have carefully curated. They also have boxes of old school projects, holiday cards, lunch notes, drawings, and every Sandra Boynton family calendar dating back to like, 2007 or something. It’s a little insane. But that stuff really scratches an itch for me. I could go through it for hours. Most of it I haven’t seen before, but there a few things that I actually look at pretty regularly. Specifically a couple notes from my dad and a card he gave me for my birthday a couple years ago.
I feel there are very few stories I am incapable of telling on this blog, but they definitely exist. There is one in particular that ties into some deep seated trauma and since the subject matter is hard for other people to understand, I prefer to keep it under wraps. But back when it first happened when I was eight, my dad began leaving notes for me in my room to try and get me to come around. At the time I felt ashamed of myself and felt guilty that he had felt the need to reassure me like that, to the point where I loathed finding them. They were all little blurbs about what my dad loved about me, written in his distinctive dad-esque handwriting. I still have them. I put a few in my personal archive box because I felt horrible throwing them out, but looking back on them now, they are some of my most important possessions. I look at them once in awhile. I can’t really place why, they just mean a lot to me.
As for the birthday card, it’s one of those cheesy Hallmark cards with the bad photoshop and everything. But on the inside, my dad wrote “I love you for everything you are and what you will be.” Since I received it at 16 it has been a special momento of mine. Something I look at when I need to feel reassured. It’s something that when I think about it can easily make me cry.
Now that I’m at this age, obviously my parents don’t know everything about me anymore and I do a lot of junk they would definitely hate. I seriously worry about dying suddenly in a freak accident and they somehow read this blog. I’m pretty sure they’d flip at half of this stuff or feel like they failed or something. Obviously I don’t think they failed for the record. Or else I wouldn’t keep personal possessions like that so close to me. My parents love their kids more than anything and although we’ve all had our moments, I’m happy to have a healthy relationship with them now.
Looking through old media and items is a very intimate experience for me. I feel good about my early childhood even though I can’t remember most of it without the help of home videos and pictures and stuff. It keeps me humble and reminds me of what’s important. Even just watching those videos with my mom, I felt a closeness with her that I would never get any other way. Home media has a way of doing that to people.
I like looking back on old stuff like that. Anything that predates me having a smartphone is mostly organized in a vast library of physical and digital media that my parents have carefully curated. They also have boxes of old school projects, holiday cards, lunch notes, drawings, and every Sandra Boynton family calendar dating back to like, 2007 or something. It’s a little insane. But that stuff really scratches an itch for me. I could go through it for hours. Most of it I haven’t seen before, but there a few things that I actually look at pretty regularly. Specifically a couple notes from my dad and a card he gave me for my birthday a couple years ago.
I feel there are very few stories I am incapable of telling on this blog, but they definitely exist. There is one in particular that ties into some deep seated trauma and since the subject matter is hard for other people to understand, I prefer to keep it under wraps. But back when it first happened when I was eight, my dad began leaving notes for me in my room to try and get me to come around. At the time I felt ashamed of myself and felt guilty that he had felt the need to reassure me like that, to the point where I loathed finding them. They were all little blurbs about what my dad loved about me, written in his distinctive dad-esque handwriting. I still have them. I put a few in my personal archive box because I felt horrible throwing them out, but looking back on them now, they are some of my most important possessions. I look at them once in awhile. I can’t really place why, they just mean a lot to me.
As for the birthday card, it’s one of those cheesy Hallmark cards with the bad photoshop and everything. But on the inside, my dad wrote “I love you for everything you are and what you will be.” Since I received it at 16 it has been a special momento of mine. Something I look at when I need to feel reassured. It’s something that when I think about it can easily make me cry.
Now that I’m at this age, obviously my parents don’t know everything about me anymore and I do a lot of junk they would definitely hate. I seriously worry about dying suddenly in a freak accident and they somehow read this blog. I’m pretty sure they’d flip at half of this stuff or feel like they failed or something. Obviously I don’t think they failed for the record. Or else I wouldn’t keep personal possessions like that so close to me. My parents love their kids more than anything and although we’ve all had our moments, I’m happy to have a healthy relationship with them now.
Looking through old media and items is a very intimate experience for me. I feel good about my early childhood even though I can’t remember most of it without the help of home videos and pictures and stuff. It keeps me humble and reminds me of what’s important. Even just watching those videos with my mom, I felt a closeness with her that I would never get any other way. Home media has a way of doing that to people.
