Sabrina's Personal Essays

  Nightly Reruns “Be bold! Do what you want! Even if you make a mistake or say something you shouldn't have, no one else cares that much. It’ll be forgotten about within days.” This type of advice never worked on me. Even if no one else cares, the amount that I care overrides any common sense the quote is trying to instill. I may have the memory of a goldfish, but one thing I’ll never forget is my embarrassing moments, whether from yesterday or five years ago. Late at night, when I should’ve fallen asleep ages ago, I lay vulnerable to my overthinking. Cursed memories and the (much more pressing) need to sleep wrestle for control in my head. Somehow, the cursed memories usually win. I sink lower into the folds of my comforter thinking, naively, that dreams are within reach but– Remember the days when you used to say XD every two texts? Or when you forgot how to write your own name the first time you saw your Chinese teacher in 3 years? That girl you met at summer camp 2 y...

Hoarding Memories      I’m a hoarder, and my room suffers the consequences. I’m a future archiologist’s dream and worst nightmare at the same time. I keep everything: bins of knick knacks, jars of uneaten candy, and old toys stuffed into overflowing storage boxes. My mom thinks half of it is trash, but each object, no matter how insignificant it seems, is a piece of my life. Underneath my desk are mismatched boxes filled with souvenirs from my childhood. But rather than the scrapbooks or old pictures I’ve kept, Dum Dums hold the most nostalgia. The ziploc bag of Dum Dum wrappers I’ve stubbornly refused to throw away holds years of painstaking dedication. These wrappers were the first things I ever collected, and the origin of my hoarding tendencies. They’re a reminder of my humble, childish dreams: to collect every single flavor of my favorite candy. I was unafraid to explore new tastes (though confetti turned out to be a mistake), and excited about every little thing. ...