I thought that my parents lived through more history than I did, and you might think the same about me, but it’s not exactly true. Things never stay too static for that long and even now you live through your own current events. In my parents’ lives, they saw the Cuban Missile Crisis on TV, the fall of the USSR, the Challenger explosion, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the first African American President. The Cold War was a direct result of World War II, which was a direct result of the Treaty of Versailles, which was a direct result of World War I, and all of the history that was before that. My mom remembered calling my uncle who lived in New York City during the events of nine-eleven and she and my dad remembered counting every single receipt from the grocery store during the recession. I lived through history too, though. Forty-two years ago when my mom had that fat little baby that used to be me, I saw the first African American president and lived a few months through a recession and through the last few years of elephants in the Lincoln Park Zoo.

I lived in a city with rich stories to tell too. Chicago could sing about its stars, fires, Hull Houses, and World Faires. The Midwest could talk about the Ho-Chunks, Potawatomis, Nashanbeks, and the Myaamia. There were lots of corn and milk, and there were anti-slavery movements followed by ideas of deep racism. Illinois was one of the leading states to help end child labor, and the Bears beat the Packers for the first time in a jokingly long time.

Most of those things were not part of my lifetime, and I learned about them in classes a long time ago when I was still a student. As for my primary account of historical moments, they remain a part of my memories, so I write them so that I don’t forget. My parents told me about the recession and the first place I lived which was apparently a beautiful apartment even though there was a rat in the wall. Then, my childhood home was nice, which I do remember. I remember thinking Bruno Mars sang every song about me when I was strapped into my car seat and I remember an invention called an iPad. I played a game called Minecraft. My mom only let me play on this iPad a few weeks in the year: Christmas and summer. I don’t remember this, but someone Osma Bin Laden was assassinated and a song with funny dances from Korea became way too popular. Malala won a Nobel Prize, and same-sex couples could legally marry and be in love. I don’t remember most of these things–both young age and old age will do that to your memory.

What I do remember was a pandemic. Someone threw a yogurt cup onto my head because I was Chinese. The kid who did it, and I can’t even remember his face, couldn’t have known that I was Chinese because my last name is Kim, and because no white person could tell the difference between any Asian, let alone a half-Korean-half-Chinese American. But darker skin, smaller eyes, and blacker hair were enough for me to be un-American enough to have yogurt in my hair that day. I doubt the guy even knew that the annoying sniffles and coughs that everyone was scared about were from China anyway.

I remember the school announcing that we wouldn’t be returning to school. It was a Friday. I played on my iPad (as my mom had let me have more iPad liberties) with my friend and we were so excited to sleep in. The school announced again that we would stay home; it ended up staying that way for a while. I got lonely, I remember that. I remember other Asian people–old folks–getting hurt in the city and in other parts of the country. I remember the death of a black man: murder committed by police. There was a big movement and more violence. I watched it on the news on my iPad while eating lunch in a cardboard box in phalanx rows so that no one got anyone sick in school. I also watched people doing trick shots and magic tricks. I didn’t have a phone which was a big thing back then, so to listen to music, I had an iPod nano in my pocket like a hipster. Memes became a thing and so did TikTok.

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After some time of wearing masks and sitting in my bed waiting for things to happen, things started to change. I was back in school and it was mostly a fever dream. So many things happened.

I started high school soon after, and my freshman history teacher told us to read the news, so being the good student that I was, I read the news and brought headlines to class where I would listen to my teacher talk for miles in all directions of time. I think that in the school year were at least thirty school shootings. There was a war going on in Ukraine, and people were killing each other in Gaza. Roe v. Wade was overturned and it seemed that everyone was on one side of the political spectrum or the other. There was a movement online where victims of sexual violence supported each other and our felon-for-a-president president went on a date with Kim Jun-Un.

We found out that Steven Hawkin was not such a cool guy after all and then all of these celebrities got into some scandal with something to do with baby oil. The election tore my biology class apart even when biology had nothing to do with elections, and everyone relayed their parents’ opinions to each other. We’d yell at each other as if we had passion behind our beliefs but no one knew anything about anything at that time. My freshman high school teacher passed away that year. I went to my first two funerals when I was a junior in high school. A year before that I got a job as a lifeguard where I loved being outside and by the water, but hated hearing my co-workers bully each other into quitting. Apparently, they liked me enough to ask me not to quit but I did anyway. I got my heart broken that year and I broke someone else's heart–two actually.

Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari, displacing Carlos Sainz which almost made me cry. A few months before that, Caitlyn Clark became the coolest person on TV (even though I didn’t play basketball because I was short). Another few months before there was the Olympics which had a weird opening ceremony and a break dancer who people were too mean to for no good reason.

The number 2025 was a perfect square but it was hardly celebrated as Los Angeles burned down. I remember reading a book about environmentalism and how human culture and human history exist only to the detriment of nature but somehow do it beautifully. Maybe you could figure out the answer to how both can be true someday.

It’s weird to travel back in time by twenty-five years in my memories. It seems like the world's historians can’t seem to catch a break. I mean, just last week the Bears won the Super Bowl.

And so ends your mother’s incomplete, and inadequately detailed history. Goodnight.