5 Reasons to Revisit Something You Loved as a Child

As children, the world is full of excitement and wonderment. Everything is new. Everything is an experience just waiting to happen. Childhood brings us all of our Firsts: First word, first tooth, first favorite foods, first day of school, first new backpack, first Trapper Keeper, first boy band you fell in love with — Mine was New Kids on the Block — first crush, and first best friends. Later on, there are some other firsts that some of us might prefer not to have: first heartbreak, the first time you’re called a name, the first time you feel excluded from something, or the first time you realize your parents aren’t perfect.

When I think back to my childhood, it is a wash of beautiful memories and some painful ones. The first day of 2nd grade when I got a new outfit to wear, a new Trapper Keeper, and I was so excited to be going to the bus stop by myself, but my mom broke her toe and then at the bus stop, I was called a Faggot for the first time (having no idea what it meant) and then I was teased incessantly by the same neighborhood kids at the bus stop for the next four years every day for being gay and for being too pale (my nickname was “Paleboy,” and it pains me even now just writing it). The teasing finally stopped when we moved across Fresno to a suburb and I started over making new friends. Then in 7th grade, my group of friends decided not to be friends with me and never told me why. I now look back and assume it was because they thought I was gay, but I will probably never know. I cried watching the Pixar movie, Inside Out, because the end rang so true. Every memory becomes tinged with a hint of melancholy over time.

I was drawn to melancholy as a teenager. It’s really hard to grow up wondering why people don’t like you and then even worse to realize that I had an attraction to men and the very reasons I’d been made fun of my whole life were actually true. I didn’t start coming to terms with myself or my sexuality until I was in College. I went to a private Christian school to not be gay and ended up finally coming to terms with myself (with big thanks to a wonderful therapist I had). After undergrad, it took me another couple years to really come into myself. It was my friend Kelly who, at my 25th birthday party remarked, “You seem so comfortable in your own skin now.” I had finally come to terms with myself and my place in the world.

Being drawn to melancholy took its form in different ways: discovering how much I loved reading Emily Dickinson in high school, wearing lots of black in college, and being pointed out as “SOO EMO!” when I cried at a concert of The Autumns and Death Cab for Cutie down at the El Rey theater in LA. I also found that part of dealing with the melancholy of life came out in the music I wrote. All of my music had a tinge of melancholy. None of it was too happy (or, in a Major key). I was drawn to minor keys and music that was dark and brooding.

When I moved to Seattle after undergrad, the first music I wrote was a song cycle of Three Melancholy Songs based on three of my favorite melancholy Romantic poets:

To use the image of sociologist Avery Gordon, I had to “Commune with the Ghost” of my past in order to move forward. That is what I did. I had to claim the pain of my childhood and the melancholy of life in order to stop being depressed, in order to move on with my life, and in the end, in order to grow into the person I am today.

So why look back at the past?

This past week, I decided to reread one of my favorite novels I read as a child, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I don’t remember how old I was when I first read Treasure Island, but I’m going to guess it was around 12 or 13 years old. We had “Book fairs” at school and this was always my favorite time of the year. Once a year, the library would be transformed into a book store. Large metal shelves that opened up were strewn about the library and each class would be able to come in and browse books to read.

I loved browsing books. Loved. So much. While some kids would spend less than 5 minutes and then congregate near the door, ready to leave as soon as possible, I was the kid looking at every book, looking at the picture and reading the back covers… imagining being whisked away onto a ship and sailing across the Atlantic to discover buried treasure. The cover alone had me hooked. I even found the image of this first copy of Treasure Island I read:

Books became one of my first methods of escape, obviously. And Treasure Island did not disappoint. The protagonist, the young Jim Hawkins, narrates the story and becomes the brave kind of young man I wanted to be. And besides, who doesn’t like reading about Pirates?

Rereading Treasure Island this past week has me thinking about not only my childhood and the things that I loved as a child, but also about why it might be a good idea to revisit them as an adult. Here are five reasons (and I’m sure there are more).

1. Celebrating happy memories of the past

Not every memory from childhood is sad and not every memory is full of ecstatic glee, either. But those moments of pure joy should be remembered and celebrated. The adult me recognizes they are precious and sadly few and far in between. As a child, I didn’t know how much of my future life would be taken over with the part of life that’s just trying to get through life. Careless summers of months at a time to simply read and have fun. To play outside on the swing set with my siblings, to re-watch a favorite movie, or to discover a new favorite book. Celebrating something I loved as a child in a way helps me to celebrate that part of childhood itself.

I’m reminded of another favorite: a poem, also by Robert Louis Stevenson. You see, Treasure Island caused me to read more RLS and discover even more reasons to love him. As a 7th grade singer in choir, we sang a song that to this day still moves me with it’s poignance and reverence looking back at childhood:

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone 
By Robert Louis Stevenson

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, 
Say, could that lad be I? 
Merry of soul he sailed on a day 
Over the sea to Skye.

Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone! 
Give me the eyes, give me the soul, 
Give me the lad that’s gone!

I still get chills from reading this. Give me the lad that’s gone! Where did he go? I know he’s still there, deep down, inside of me. Rereading a loved classic is helping me to rediscover that lad and to celebrate him.

2. Feeling the same feelings I once felt

Part of re-reading a favorite novel from my childhood means reliving that childhood at the same time. I had a sense memory reading a particular scene in Treasure Island where Jim had climbed up the mast to escape an approaching pirate and a cutlass was hurled at him from below, pinning him to the mast. Not only was I overcome with shock and a “How is he going to get out of this?” but I had a flash back to reading the passage for the first time and feeling the exact same feeling. I was 13 years old again and experiencing that same shock and worry for young Jim. It was kinda like Déjà vu, except I know it actually happened, but remembering the feeling I had in childhood was like it was a dream.

This experience was very powerful because few things bring me back into childhood like this experience. I remember having a similar experience re-watching The Dark Crystal, a movie by Jim Henson from the early 80s. This movie haunted my dreams as a child. The scenes involving the huge beetles (“Garthim”) chasing after young Gelfling Jen gave me nightmares. Maybe they are part of why I’m still afraid of bugs. A few years ago, I found The Dark Crystal on DVD and watched it, spellbound as I was as a child. I still love this movie and re-watch it every year or two, always feeling scared of the Garthim and inspired by the astronomer Aughra’s orrery model of the Great Conjunction.

3. Laughing at yourself

Ok, not everything I loved as a child holds up like Treasure Island or The Dark Crystal. But that can be fun too. My best friend and I have a movie night about once a month where we revisit movies from childhood. It’s always something ridiculous or “Bad-Good,” such as Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead or Adventures in Babysitting. (It’s just a coincidence that some of the latest films have been babysitter related).

Sometimes, however, we come across a movie that I remember being “Amazing” and realize it’s kind of shite. We had this experience with Back to the Future II. As a kid: Amazing. Hoverboards. Enough said, right? Not so fast… while it’s quirky and fun to see Michael J Fox (who has an uncanny resemblance to my Dad), play his future son and his future daughter, (probably the first time I encountered drag too, actually!), the plot is nothing more than silly. And why is this creepy “Doc” meddling in this poor family’s life so much? It didn’t hold up so much as I hoped it would, but nothing that a little alcohol and junkfood can’t turn into a fun evening. BttF2 was “Bad-bad.” And I laughed at how bad it was and I laughed at my younger self for thinking it was so good.

4. Remembering why it was a favorite in the first place

Ok, back to some more seriousness… another aspect of revisiting something once loved is coming back to why you loved it in the first place. I knew Treasure Island was one of my favorite novels. I would always put it up in my Top 10 list but over time, I had forgotten why. I liked the ship, the pirates, the quest for hidden treasure… but what about the novel did I like so much?

Rereading it gave me the opportunity to rediscover this classic work of literature. To fall in love with the story again and to remember what it was about it that I liked so much: the escapism of it. That feeling of being so caught up in a story that you couldn’t put it down. That feeling of becoming the character — of putting yourself in their shoes and feeling their feelings, being frightened and exhilarated, and not knowing what was coming next. I remembered some of the plot points, but I had forgotten enough that reading it again was really more like reading it for the first time.

5. Appreciation at a deeper level

Probably the best reason to revisit something I once loved as a child is my ability as an adult to appreciate it at a different level. As a child, it’s mostly plot that stands out, but as an adult, I appreciate other things such as character development and quality of writing. Robert Louis Stevenson is really a great writer. I loved the quality of his writing and (Thank you, Kindle!) I actually had to use the dictionary to look up several words that I didn’t know — mostly pirate and ship terminology like “Coracle” and the difference between a “Boatswain,” and a “Coxswain.”

I was also able to relate to Jim differently throughout the novel. At the beginning, he is very much a boy, but towards the end, he has grown up significantly and upon experiencing death firsthand and being chased by pirates, he steps up and develops a newfound resourcefulness and courage. It is a coming of age story set against the backdrop of a quest for treasure and pirates. I have always loved coming of age novels and I dream of one day writing a dissertation on the postmodern coming of age and how coming of age in the realm of technology is different from the coming of age that we read about in school. But that’s a topic for another post.

A suggestion to leave you with

You know that movie, or tv show, or novel from your childhood that you loved? That one you haven’t read or seen in a while… that once that profoundly changed your life… that one that caused you to see the world differently… that one that made you laugh… the one that made you cry.

Read that one.

You’ll be glad you did.