when did we stop doing things just for fun?

on nostalgia, growing up, and remembering that joy still counts even when you're in pain

May 15, 2026

when did you start believing that the painful parts of your life were more real than the joyful ones?

“Remember how crazy you were about Justin Bieber growing up?” my best friend asked as we were talking about his recent Coachella performance.

Between Bieberchella and Hannah Montana’s 20th anniversary, I’ve been feeling more nostalgic than usual.

I had almost forgotten that I was the biggest Belieber growing up. I had a whole diary dedicated to him — his favourite colour, song lyrics, Jelena gossip, everything. I would daydream about him, blush at his music videos, and crush on him with the full intensity of a girl who had no bills to pay.

As a child, all I wanted was to grow up — to be independent, have freedom, and eat whatever I wanted, obviously. But now that I’m here, living inside the adulthood I once romanticised, I sometimes wish I could go back and relive the simplest parts of being young. Because at some point, life stops feeling like something we are enjoying and starts becoming something we have to manage. There are bills, heartbreaks, careers, families, losses, responsibilities — and slowly, without even realising it, we forget how to do things simply because they make us happy. We forget how to simply be.

It is almost funny how easily I used to find joy in the smallest things — from fangirling over celebrities to buying new textbooks before school reopened just so I could sniff the crisp pages. It was choosing the cutest stationery to show my friends, singing my heart out to Britney, Bieber and Katy Perry, watching Hannah Montana before school, playing with stray dogs, and looking forward to school every day just to see my girlfriends and laugh about the silliest things.

Back then, joy was everywhere!

If I look at my own life honestly, most people were only meant to walk with me for a season. Nostalgia reminded me that life is mostly a series of experiences — some good, some painful, and some that end before we are ready. In the last twenty years, I’ve had several close friends. Half drifted away, a few hurt me badly, and only two are still my best friends today. It sounds sad when I put it like that, almost like proof that most people leave. But maybe not everyone is meant to stay for the whole story. Some people only belong to a chapter, a version of us, a season we eventually outgrow.

For a long time, I thought that meant the memories were fake. I thought if something ended badly, maybe I had imagined the goodness of it. But maybe two things can be true at once: the pain was real, and so was the love. A friendship ending does not erase the years of laughter that came before it. A traumatic experience does not erase the love you once received.

So when we become adults, especially when we hit rock bottom, we start wearing our wounds like badges. The more we get hurt, the more carefully we start living. We call it maturity, but sometimes it is just fear wearing sensible shoes. We make safer choices, smaller choices, choices designed to make sure we never feel that kind of pain again.

But in trying to protect ourselves from pain, we can also end up protecting ourselves from joy. And when we protect ourselves too much, we keep reminding ourselves of what hurt us, until slowly, quietly, we forget that our life had joy too. Even if you had a shitty, painful year, you still might have laughed more in your life than you cried in that one year. Your tears and pain are real, but so are the love, laughter, silliness, softness, and warmth you have known.

Nostalgia reminded me that joy still exists. Maybe the way back to ourselves is smaller than we think. Sing the song you once played on repeat. Rewatch the cartoon. Dance in your room. Colour badly. Buy the silly stationery. Do something with no purpose other than the fact that it makes some younger version of you smile.

Let this essay remind you that your life is not only the story of what hurt you. It is also the story of every time you laughed, loved, danced, fangirled, hoped, and felt completely here.