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lived within 15 minutes of an ikea most of my life, and as a result, all my childhood memories are clustered and organized in my mind like ikea showrooms. ikea meatballs (recently, and scandalously, revealed to be of turkish — not swedish — origin, something we always knew since the company my dad worked for back then produced them) with jam always tasted like home. crying in the back of the car because my parents forgot me at the småland play area and drove home — and even though they came back 30 minutes later, i was too hurt to forgive them right away. falling asleep on one of the beds in the perfectly curated little girl bedrooms and my dad having to carry me into the shopping cart. running around until i was out of breath in the self-service furniture section. begging for ice cream at checkout. me and my mom only getting one soda to share because there were free refills and we were poor.
i drove to an ikea for an hour for the first time as an adult in the u.s. recently and held back tears the entire time because of the mind-numbing nostalgia. i was all grown up, but the meatballs tasted exactly the same. in true proustian fashion, i realized that my nostalgia — and the longing i attach to these memories — is somewhat synthetic, because there is no pain in the past. the pain is here, in the present, because none of my people are in this ikea with me anymore. and i am trying to hold onto what i’ve already lost simply by virtue of time passing.
nevertheless, it is important to eat the ikea meatballs even when you’re all alone. not just because they’re delicious, but because the power of involuntary memory — conjured through the simple cause and effect of a scent or a taste — has a profound effect on the body and the soul, though fleeting by nature, dulled over time by the desensitization of the senses. but for now, that brief moment of euphoria — the way the ikea meatballs effortlessly transport me back to my childhood — is worth a thousand trips to ikea.
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i bit into my overnight oats the other day and was catapulted back to the fall of my senior year of college.
if i had closed my eyes, i would’ve found myself in my Chicago sunroom, waiting for Hailey to finish making her pesto eggs.
i felt overwhelming nostalgia and a general sense that (oh!) things do turn out ok.
it was awesome.
i felt like the critic from ratatouille.
May 12, 2025
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is it the childhood trauma or just too much of a good thing? idk but being human sure is a trip
Nov 21, 2024
Nostalgia is so powerful. And so painful.
I’ve made Pinterest boards filled with hundreds of memories and toys and things that shaped my childhood. I’ve made playlists that include only songs that make me feel 6 years old again. I’ve watched movies that bring me the same wonder they did as when I watched them as a child.
But nothing will ever truly bring me back there. It’s gone forever. to know that I will never walk the halls of my elementary school building, or try and plant an apple seed in between the slides of the playground, or play tag with my best buddies ever again is something unbearable. life is so short. I miss it all of the time.
Adulthood has its perks as well. I never have to ask to go sleep over at a friends house and get told no. I can eat what i want. I can get a kitten if I feel like it. But I miss the simplicity and happiness of being a child. I miss just existing and being okay with that. i miss how I felt when I was 6, but I have to accept that I must leave that behind.
Maybe reincarnation is real. Maybe I will live through something like this life again?
There is an ache knowing I will never walk the same tiny footsteps as I once did. But alas, I’ll be 19 years from where I’m at now and miss this age just as much as I do then. The ache will take a new shape. And i will continue living on.
Feb 12, 2025
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i keep finding myself going back to the same millennial gray, gentrification-core coffee shop in the college town i recently moved to just because of their rose matcha. roses have been a core part of my identity my whole life — not just because they hold a significant place in turkish culture (especially in the cuisine, where we use rose water in jams, desserts, turkish delights, sherbets, and syrups), but also because my parents literally named me the romanized version of the arabic word for rose (ورده). every man i’ve ever dated has bought me bouquet after bouquet of roses for that exact reason. my mom planted red rose bushes around my great grandma’s grave after she passed away on my eighth birthday. i compulsively applied rose water for months on my belly after getting stung by a venomous jellyfish in fourth grade. i’m not even sure how much of that was actual medicine versus general wudhu-esque spiritual cleansing (when mehmet II conquered constantinople in 1453, he ordered the hagia sophia to be cleansed with rose water before converting it into a mosque — big thing in islam). just a month ago, i queued roses by the chainsmokers on the jukebox app at my iowa small town’s dive bar for the last time with one of my best friends. we sent our groupchat a drunken video of us dancing to it.
about a week ago, alisa, my summer roommate and friend of four years, bought a bouquet of pink roses from trader joe’s. they’re somehow still fresh — i think it’s because she talks to them every morning: “hello, lovelies. how are you doing today?” she says. she changes their water and trims their stems every day.
today, i went to yoga for the first time as a 23-year-old after being insufferable about it and calling it cultural appropriation my whole life, and there were rose petals on the floor. the instructor said it was an accident — they just started falling when she was throwing out an old bouquet, and she left them there because they were “vibey.”
i like to think my soul is intertwined with roses. i guess this post isn’t really about them, though — it’s about finding some kind of imagery that you connect with so deeply, both spiritually and emotionally, that it feels like it’s followed you around your whole life. i still have the rose my seventh-grade boyfriend gave to me pressed in a notebook somewhere in my childhood bedroom & you should too.
Jun 13, 2025
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no podcast, no music, nothing. just you, warm soapy water, and your dirty dishes from last night. byung-chul han writes that time has a scent when it has duration. for me, that scent this morning was dawn dish soap.
6d ago