#i've got fairy girls but i haven't read it since i bought it *and* i just found out i'm missing a volume

[just-someone-online]

Lowkey, a part of me wishes the spin-offs could be animated. Like, I need to see my boy Wendell on tv

[wroteonedad]

The 20's Made Me Regress

As a kid, I used to love nothing more than getting up at 7:30 in the morning and watching episodes of Hannah Montana while I cuddled up with my teddy bear and hoped that today might be the day that mum and dad take me out for a Happy Meal. I loved those blackcurrant and apple Fruit Shoots. Now I am 22 and I still like to get up, watch Hannah Montana reruns and choose which stuffed toy I want under my arm today. I feel so much nostalgia and so much comfort for things I had as a child that I used to train myself to get rid of. 'I won't sleep with my teddies from the day of my 13th birthday' I would say to myself and then I would fail, feeling chilly at night and grabbing the first handful of stuffed bears I could find.

I would spend endless hours, playing the Sims 2 on my DS, a story which followed a girl whose car breaks down in a sleepy town and they walk into the hotel and suddenly they're running a few errands for the place and become a manager all in the same day. I always used to think that whole narrative was so cool, like a dream. I would go to my grandmas house and play Sims 1 on the PC. There was one pre-made household who had lots of money and I once converted their room into an arcade and deleted the front door before they would go to bed every night, just so they wouldn't get robbed.

My room is covered in a variation of novelty fairy lights, lobsters, pumpkins, you name it, it's there and I even bought myself a lava lamp because my grandma had one in the spare room when I was a kid and I used to sit in the cold room at 6am, watching the orange lava flow up and down. I could sit for hours and watch it. I would see the sticker that says to not touch it and I would still reach my hand out, acting surprised when my finger was burned, red raw from the heat of the wax.

I would persuade my family to buy every issue of Girl Talk, flicking through every one of its bright pink pages and reading all the celebrity gossip which always revolved around Cheryl Cole and Selena Gomez. Not at the same time of course.

Maybe it was Covid. Maybe that was the major event that took place that made me regress the way I did. A time in which we were all stuck at home trying to find means to an end every day for over a year. I still remember spending Christmas alone in 2020 vividly. I hate nut roast. That Christmas made me realise how much I hate them. Honestly. The texture is off. I think there was something about being indoors alone for such a long period of time that made me come to terms with how much one needs to have comfort. Human touch and interaction are two important things to have in life, but what happens when you have no access to that? I lived in a house where I could easily go a week without even saying hello to my own housemates. The most we ever really said to each other was 'who's turn is it to get toilet paper?'. It was sad. I was sad. And when they all got to go home for Christmas and I didn't, I was devastated. You can live in a home with a group of people who you don't like and who you don't speak to, but when they all leave and go to their homes, the silence becomes so loud. I think that was the key point where I found the bear I'd had since I was a child and I took it out and held it close again. I haven't really let go since.

I got back into playing games. I can't name one person who didn't end up at least buying a Switch during lockdown. And sure, I stopped playing my Switch when rules were lifted and then using it again every time there was a lockdown. But now, I find that there is no comfort like playing a Switch. I pick up Animal Crossing maybe once a month, I feel bad, but I love to check up. I've gotten into playing Kirby and Mario and Breath of the Wild. These games are making me feel like I am living my childhood again. I love the comfort of the cosy games, the games which also make me go Kyle mode every now and again. I love feeling warm with my piles of toys and extra blanket layers and I've found joy in kitsch lighting again. I think a lot of us are in the same boat. The historic events from this decade have been so surreal that it would feel more strange to not regress, at least in some way. It's made me feel humble and it's taught me to not feel so embarrassed about picking up things again now that I used to love and finding a new found love for it all over again. I now understand why my nanna would lecture me when I told her as a child that I couldn't wait to be an adult because I can do whatever I want whenever I want.

I wish I could tell 8 year old me that paying taxes and working a full time job is not fun and that I should just appreciate the moment as it happens.