Present-day Asuncion Kids.
Not all are kids anymore, though.
"The funny thing about memory is that it makes you laugh when you remember the times you cried together, and it makes you cry when you remember the times you laughed together."
This is just very true. It's quite sad to leave all the laughter and the joy behind, and the little things you cry about when you're young, just laugh at them eventually. When you mature, and everything becomes more serious, this just has to happen, and honestly, memories are very, very confusing.
Why the sudden nostalgia?
It was a Friday night, after finals. My cousin came over, and invited me to stay over with them. She tempted me with brunch and a movie. (Am I easily tempted or what?) Free stuff to do over what would be a boring Saturday morning and afternoon. I gave in and asked permission, and I'm at my grandmother's house now.
The nostalgic part of Friday night was the conversation I had with my cousin. Everything we did as a family started coming back, all the memories, the good and the bad.
How could I forget? It was all so innocent back then. It was really just purely innocent fun we all had. The times we'd get annoyed at each other for the most trivial things, the times we'd all be so obsessed with certain things. The times that we all just did stuff, and no one thought malice of it, stuff that if we did now, people would freak out.
I remember... (My Top Ten Memories of the Asuncion Clan)
10. The Band.
Earlier in the previous decade, we were all musically obsessed at some point. We decided to form a band. It never pushed through, but the memory was still loved. Ate France and I played guitars at the time. Alisa planned on taking up bass. Paola on Drums. It was a family thing. It was a fun thing to plan out, but it never really pushed through. Oh well...
9. The Harry Potter obsession.
Intensely addicted to Harry Potter, I remember all those sheets of paper listing down all the spells and what they'd do. The free website we made that was purely dedicated to the cast (Radcliffe, Watson, Grint). I remember the toy wands we made out of whatever we could find.
8. The Yearly Halloween Treats.
It used to be so that we'd go trick or treat in the humongous Ayala Alabang Village. This used to be an every year thing, and then we'd all split the candy we got. It was heaven, and the candies used to last us for days. Of course, we didn't forget to brush our teeth afterwards.
7. The Bible Sessions.
Our grandma used to enroll us in Sunday school. It was all Bible based, and it was fun, but I don't remember any of our friends there, us family, we just stuck together. I remember some of the games though. The RPS-type, Bible game we always played, the candy they always gave. (Samson, Delilah, Lion instead of Rock, Paper, Scissors and the candy they gave was always Airheads) I don't remember so much about much of the other schools we went to, I only remember a few.
6. New Year's.
It so happened long ago that New Year's eve, we spent a part of it in Ayala Alabang, blowing up fireworks. And at around 10pm, despite the noise, everything was crazier inside the household than outside. Crazy in a sense that it was weird. Alisa was sleeping, I don't know how she could despite the noise. Gabbie was always scared, she'd be hiding out in the maid's quarters, or the music room, trying to get away from the thunderous noise of the firecrackers. Everyone else was either trying to wake Alisa up, or trying to force Gabbie to come out and see the colors in the night sky.
5. The Yearly Clan Photo.
My grandfather likes to keep memories in his albums. He has collection of hundreds of photo albums, thousand maybe even tens of thousands of photos. But, there's always a photo that I'll never forget, the yearly family photo we always take at Christmas. It's a way for my grandpa to remember all of us as we grew up through the years, and it's a way for us kids to see that too. Also, it's a way for us to see how we all grew up, and a stimulus for nostalgia. We'd always remember the funny poses, how it all turned out, and of course, my personal favorite... "The Eyeball Photo."
I'm trying to find a copy of the Eyeball Photo.
4. The Slide.
From our grandparents' old house in the Villamor Airbase, to their new house in Ayala Alabang, there was a slide that always accompanied our childhood. I don't know where it is now, I think it's in the empty lot next door, but the green, yellow and red slide always provided us with memories. From "the push incident" to the rustiness, it had always been there for us, providing us with a momentary breeze of air as we slid down, with our white shorts then colored rust afterwards.
3. The Clubhouse.
There was a place we used to call "The Clubhouse." It was a bench attached to a tree on the empty lot next to our grandparents' place. It was our hang out place, it was where we stayed while eating chips, drinking softdrinks, and just hanging out, before the weather got too hot, and before Facebook and the internet started taking it all away from us. I remember Paola used to climb that tree, I didn't know how to climb, but eventually I learned, I didn't climb so much though. I remember looking over the wall, into a vast distance of nothing but sky.
2. Gaming
If we weren't in Alabang, we would sleep over in whoever's house. Whatever we had to do was what we did, and the Betitas (Ate France, Alisa, Paola, Tea wasn't born yet at the time) had a computer filled with so much different games. And Spooky Castle was one of our favorites. We would kill each other over playing time. And there's something I'm not so proud of... I was young, so don't judge me... For some time, we all played... Detective Barbie. I know it's a girly game, but childhood memories are fun that way, you'd do stuff you know you wouldn't do when you become of age.
1. The Bubble Bath.
Our grandparents had a bath tub in their huge bathroom (it's still there). All of us, Ate Francie, Alisa, Junie (my brother), Paola, and Gabbie (Casas, another cousin of ours) used to take bubble baths all at the same time, and enjoyed it every single time, despite all six of us trying to desperately fit into a bath tub where I know I'd barely fit now. It was a pain for our bodies trying to cramp ourselves in there, but it was so worth it, I enjoyed every single bruise (if I did have, although, I think I probably would have had one.)
Original Asuncion Babies.
1998.
Greetings from the Asuncion kids of the 90's.
FrancieJustinAlisaJuniePaolaGabbie.
No comments:
Post a Comment