Time stamps don’t matter when you’re little. Days pass in the quiet innocence of looking forward to your favourite breakfast, reading the back of the cereal box while you eat. Every next thing feels exciting. You rush to finish the milk at the bottom of the bowl so you can run to the playroom, already impatient for whatever game is waiting to begin.

What will it be today? The teddies sit lined up shoulder to shoulder, the little cars waiting neatly in their boxes, the doll’s house returned carefully to its place — everything tidied away yesterday, only so it can come alive again today. This playroom waits for small imaginations to ignite it.

We’re walking away now, listening to the excited chatter and mild bickering over how teddy school should begin. We glance back with a smile, still moving in the direction that takes us farther and farther from the playroom. Soon, the voices fade into the distance, soft enough to almost disappear.

We keep walking toward adulthood, and the playroom becomes only a memory. But we smile still, grateful that its warmth and nostalgia quietly with us wherever we go.

Our playroom was dappled in sunlight, the rug’s blue squares glowing in different shades, tiny floating specks making the entire room already look like a memory.

One day, we won’t be here anymore — little voices, different yet so similar, intertwining: “Let’s pretend the castle falls down.”

One day, we’ll be grown up, waking up in different beds, in different houses, at different stages of life. But what won’t change is the warmth our hearts feel when we reminisce, remember, and reflect on how beautiful it all was.

Because childhood is so fleeting, and every child deserves the beauty it has to offer.