I recaptured some of my childhood today.

Trigger warning: drug abuse, childhood traumas

Today I received something I had been excitedly anticipating in the mail. I found a GameBoy Advance SP in pearl pink that was in decent condition on eBay that wasn’t crazy expensive and decided to purchase it. Even though it’s from Japan, it is unlocked and I should be able to play games in English.

Anyway, I have a few good childhood memories, and one was receiving this console as a child. My mom bought it for me after I got appendicitis in 2001, and I was obsessed. As a little girl I always enjoyed playing video games, especially on hand helds. This was also very pretty. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything that was of monetary value from back then due to my dad selling my stuff to pawn shops for his substance issue. My mom bought me another SP (couldn’t find the pink one anymore) and that eventually “disappeared” too. Life went on, chaotic as it was.

I guess I’m posting this on here because I wasn’t expecting it to affect me like it did. I was talking to my husband about the games that came with it (all in Japanese) and he talked about his experience going to specialty game stores with his mom and trying to find anime games that were only released in Japan because he has seen them in these gaming magazines he used to read. I told him that was an incredibly wholesome story and thought about him being able to grow up with any abuse or trauma and I just started crying like I was a little girl again. I’m 30! I knew I bought this trying to experience some of those good feelings I had as a little girl but I just didn’t think it still affected me enough to have me crying like I did. I guess some things come up to the surface eventually. I haven’t cried about my childhood in a long time. My therapist even called me somber because I’m always so calm when retelling my traumas. I guess this little square handheld gaming device was enough to evoke emotions I had not felt in a while.