“When I was six, I had a friend who liked to call me ‘big bird’. I used to be fucking tall as a kid, like I remember standing in the back of the class for class photos. Or like when they lined us up in gym class tallest to shortest.”

“What ever happened?”

“Dude, I know. I topped out at 5’11. It’s fucking tough.”

“Sorry for interrupting.”

“Nah you’re good. Anyway, my friend called me big bird. And I didn’t have a TV as a kid, so I had no idea who big bird was. I went home and asked my mom who big bird was. And she lost her shit. She was telling me he was trying to indoctrinate me or something. I, deadass, almost stopped going to school because my mom was hysterical.”

“Your mom? Isn’t she like a granola mom?”

“She’s chilled out, I guess.”

“You think she voted for Trump?”

“She voted for Jill Stein, prolly.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh yeah. So my mom is about to call the school and tell them not to show me Sesame Street and stuff. But then my dad walked in, and he always told her she was too paranoid. He made her hang up, told her she was being nuts, and put me in the backyard. They argued for a while. I was playing basketball, when my mom came out to call me in for dinner. That night we went to Walmart and bought a TV, and I watched Ren and Stimpy.”

“Huh. That’s a crazy thing to watch first.”

“I know right.”

“Whatever happened to your friend?”

“Funny thing. I don’t know. He moved later that year, and I never heard about him since.”

“Isn’t that crazy?”

“Yeah.”

Sometimes my nostalgia comes to me at night. Late night. It embraces me in my loneliest moments, comforting me with a hug. Some nights, it’s warm and milky. Life is seen through rose colored goggles. Other times, it’s cold and vacuous. I’ve never really experienced trauma. Not in the same way my parents have probably had. No, I’ve lived a sheltered life. But the cold embrace of the nostalgia weighs on me. It grasps me. Not letting go, unless I force it to.

I have had issues in my life with dreams. I don’t really dream at night, when I sleep. Instead, I daydream. I think it may be due to my tired eyes. From the lack of sleep, I spawn the craziest dreams of things I never wanted to see. Visions of cringe, visions of the sexual, visions of a life I never wanted to live. There is a cynical side of me that I’ve grown to despise in life. It prevents me from exploring new things. Because what if it goes wrong. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid the pitfalls of life. It’s nigh impossible to. So what holds me back is the cynic in me. Making certain that things will go bad. Even if they don’t.

I remember times of childhood. They bleed into my dreams at times. I don’t miss being a child. Boogers in my nose till 13, stinky feet, awkward encounters with everyone. But I do miss the blissful ignorance. Young Jayden never had to know that his friends had sex while he was in the house. Young Jayden didn’t have to pay taxes. Young Jayden didn’t have to comprehend manmade horrors because that’s what everyone does now. I’ve tried to look up people I used to go to school with, see if anything became of them. Because of the nature of life, most times I’m left with nothing. People aren’t chronically online like me. I’ve seen some though. Kids who ended up swinging one way politically (like I knew they would). Teens who burnt out at way too early of an age (at too privileged of an area). Adults who have fucking kids now.

I sometimes feel like I keep the memory of certain people alive. Some of the more elusive kids I looked up. The ones who disappeared on everyone. Whatever happened to them? I don’t know. I want to know. I need to. But then the feeling goes away. The dreams stop. And then I am sat, wondering why I ever did it in the first place. I allow my mind to wander too much. Hm.