{"id":20721,"date":"2024-12-05T16:08:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=20721"},"modified":"2024-12-05T16:08:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:08:41","slug":"my-pre-immigrant-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2024\/12\/05\/my-pre-immigrant-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"My Pre-Immigrant Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Whenever I meet new people, one thing I love to mention is the fact that I was born in Indonesia. Sometimes I feel like it\u2019s my only defining trait. Even if it\u2019s the only thing people remember me by, at least it\u2019s unique. I mean, I\u2019m proud of where I come from\u2026 I think. It definitely wasn\u2019t my favorite time in my life, but I was also 4 so I wouldn\u2019t even know. I moved to America in April of 2014, which was over 10 years ago now (that\u2019s INSANE to me) and because I was so young, I barely remember it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m always asked, \u201cWhat do you remember about Indonesia?\u201d and I usually answer, \u201cNot much!\u201d But that stupid question always kickstarts the rusty little cobweb-covered gears in my brain to start remembering the foggiest time of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my <\/span>favorite<\/span><\/i> memories of my life before America was playing online games with my dad. I\u2019ve mentioned it before in my other blogs but not in detail. I\u2019ve also already mentioned the fact that my dad gave me my first laptop at 4 years old. I still can\u2019t tell if that was a good or bad parenting move.<\/span><\/p>\n

For those of you that didn\u2019t experience the most magical form of childhood joy, Pixie Hollow Online was Disney\u2019s Tinkerbell MMO thing. Key word \u201cwas\u201d because it shut down in 2013 and I was there! I remember logging on and waiting for my computer to crash or something. I don\u2019t remember many details, just a blurry feeling of sadness as my favorite fairy game was ripped away from my little 5 year old hands. I\u2019ll never forgive Disney for that\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember one time I was redecorating my house, and I\u2019m sure it looked great because 5 year old me must\u2019ve had amazing interior design skills. I don\u2019t remember what the house looked like, but I do remember having a trash can made of leaves and my dad did the little sitting emote on it and told me he was \u201cusing the bathroom\u201d in my trash can. I remember getting <\/span>so mad<\/span><\/i> because obviously it was for trash! Sorry if that detail was weird, it\u2019s the only thing I actually remember about playing that game. Clearly, you can see who I get my potty humor from\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

While I was doing research to see if my brain was lying to me or not, I found a Pixie Hollow blog post from the exact day Pixie Hollow shut down and it is so funny and also so sad. I\u2019ll share it <\/span>HERE!!!<\/a> if anyone is curious about what happened in my little fairy world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watching all the Tinkerbell movies and playing Pixie Hollow unsurprisingly led me to believe in fairies. Like seriously. Until I was 10. I moved to America when I was 6 so I don\u2019t know what on Earth was keeping my fairy beliefs up for 4 more years but it needs to come back. Anyway, the sweetest memory I have from Indonesia is going outside with my dad and placing doll-sized chairs and tables and coming back the next day to find glitter sprinkled all over it. My dad would wake me up and tell me, \u201cThe fairies came last night!\u201d and I would run out to go see the \u201cpixie dust\u201d and that was the only kind of running I ever did as a kid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, I did not believe in Santa Clause – I believed in Christmas fairies. I <\/span>loved<\/span><\/i> Legos as a kid, and I remember one Christmas where I woke up to glitter all over my (unwrapped) presents and found a little red fire truck Lego set. While I was building it, I was eating watermelon in one hand and playing in the piles of glitter with another hand and my dad mistakenly thought I was eating the glitter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have so many little memories that stand alone without any leading moments. I wish I remembered more but it\u2019s physically impossible for me to. Like this one ad on YouTube that I would watch multiple times a night for a few weeks where it was some sort of dollhouse with a waterslide. It wasn\u2019t for Barbies, it was for little toys and I don\u2019t even remember if they were little humans or animals. I think about it a lot, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a preschool aged child on the internet, I <\/span>loved<\/span><\/i> My Little Pony. I\u2019m still a fan, I have a bunch of MLP stickers all over my water bottle (thanks Richie!). A memory that honestly haunts me probably sits somewhere on a digital camera\u2019s SD card somewhere. So I watched a lot of skits made with MLP toys. And guess who had a bunch of MLP toys\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Inspired by all of the skits I watched, I decided I wanted to make a video. So I set up my dad\u2019s digital camera in between me and 2 of my MLP toys and I made AppleJack (and whoever the other one was) talk! Except they weren\u2019t talking\u2026 Because for some reason I thought the camera would hear my thoughts. So I was humming. Like talking in my head. Apparently a little too loud because my dad interrupted my (totally amazing) video to ask me what I was doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember watching the video back and being <\/span>so<\/span><\/i> disappointed that the camera didn\u2019t pick up the words I was saying\u2026 in my head. Now that I think about it, I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s what I did every time I played with any of my toys. I probably hummed so loudly because I didn\u2019t know what kind of conversation my toys would have because I didn\u2019t know many words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now back to shorter memories once again, my dad worked a lot so I had a lot of babysitters. One time, it was a hot sunny day (like most were in Indonesia) and I was sitting on my bed with the babysitter doing something I don\u2019t remember. And then I saw a big, fat rat come out of our shower drain and run around the room until my babysitter hit it with a broom. That\u2019s all I remember. Now I don\u2019t know if the rat was super big because Indonesia had crazy big rats or because I was a tiny 4 year old, either way it was <\/span>huge<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve mentioned the fact that I grew up living in a motel in Indonesia before. I think the only reason we were able to stay so long was because my dad was friends with the motel owner. This motel was built on a huge hill that had a little concrete balcony connected to the parking lot. They had potted ferns with the kinds that curl up when you touch them so every morning I would go outside to harass the ferns because I thought it was so cool. I\u2019m still looking for those kinds of ferns by the way, I want to have one and touch the leaves every morning. That would be a nice full circle moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, one day I was running up (or down) the huge slope of the driveway, and I fell. I rarely did anything active so I rarely got hurt, but this one was bad. (This is super gross so skip to the next paragraph if you\u2019re easily grossed out!) Somehow, I scraped almost all of the skin off of my elbow. Like gone<\/em>. I get so uncomfortable thinking about it now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To my knowledge, I don\u2019t have a scar to prove it but I remember my dad making me wear an arm sling that used to belong to him. Actually, when I was looking through my paperwork to apply to MSA, I found a picture of him wearing that exact sling!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was fun to finally write down all of these memories that might fade out as I get older. Spending so much time thinking about the past made me really sad. When my dad found videos of me playing with my toys and putting my stuffed animals to sleep, I cried <\/span>so hard<\/span><\/i>. At this point, I was like 10. I don\u2019t even know why I started crying, but if he found those videos again I would probably cry even harder.<\/span><\/p>\n

I miss being a little kid, and that\u2019s so strange to say. I have so much now and I have so much ahead of me, but I can\u2019t help but miss the past <\/span>so much<\/span><\/i>. Honestly, my life was probably worse back then but I just want to go back. Writing this blog made me realize how often my dad was in my favorite memories. I miss him, which is something I haven\u2019t said since I was a kid going off to elementary school for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I get these visions of my childhood, like I knew that moment wouldn\u2019t last forever so I decided to remember it until I was 16 and writing about the few memories I have from Indonesia. Watching memories of my childhood is like watching short clips of a TV show that grows more static as time goes on. Something that\u2019s just slightly out of my reach now, but it\u2019s slipping away more and more as the years go on. I don\u2019t want to grow up, but I can’t do anything about it now. I think I should text my dad.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever I meet new people, one thing I love to mention is the fact that I was born in Indonesia. Sometimes I feel like it\u2019s my only defining trait. Even if it\u2019s the only thing people remember me by, at least it\u2019s unique. I mean, I\u2019m proud of where I come from\u2026 I think. It … Continue reading “My Pre-Immigrant Memories”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20721"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20749,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721\/revisions\/20749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}