I am jealous of her—my younger self that is.

Studying the face of a person that you’ve never truly seen is jarring, especially for a project that spans over the course of 2 months. Although the eyes never change size or shape in a lifetime, it’s the most difficult attribute of the body to paint. I found myself struggling to perfect the eyes of a girl that lived in bliss, something about the softness and familiarity of emotions that told a story in the eyes were present whilst I flipped through a photo album called “Childhood” to find my symbolic reference.

This painting conveys the concept of joy in childhood—but as we grow further away from child’s play, we are filled with greed and mourning that is fueled by the loss of innocence. As I grew older, alongside the decline of my naivete, my connection with my Japanese heritage dissolved; I no longer attended Japanese school and my motivation, once burning brightly, dwindled long before I fully matured.

The hands that represent my current self are a vital extension of the body: to the blind, they are eyes; to the condemned, they are symbols. A firework held by my younger self signals bliss and elation in contrast to the disordered setting. It is a visual representation of the distorted erasure of my past, with Japanese symbols dripping away. The firework being held by my younger self is displayed as an act of simple, childish joy that is controlled and absolute. On the contrary, the larger hand tries to reciprocate the action by “holding” its own definition of joy: childhood nostalgia.

Yet, the fire spreads uncontrollably, the flames creeping ever closer. My desires burn brighter, and a new question arises: Do I appreciate the feeling of joy itself, or do I yearn for an outdated concept of joy?

Flipping through the pages of the album that hold a treasure trove of memories, I am no longer looking for a reference. I am searching for the answer to why I grieve when I hold a photograph of myself—withered with age. Naturally, the “spark” of joy from childhood is finite; it exists only for a short time before we are forced to face a much more chaotic reality. Like a burning match, the flame is bound to end.

But I also like to think that a burning match resembles a timeline. Throughout different stages in our lives, we play two roles when it comes to the concept of experience. The observer and the preserver. The naive versus the aware. The cycle repeats itself—during times of vulnerability, we may not realize the beauty of the present, but in the future, we will mourn the feelings we can never fully relive.

Perhaps all we can do is preserve. We might as well cup our hands above a flame for warmth and invite ourselves to accept that the past is unattainable, the human mind evolves too fast and tends to forget our yearnings.

Childhood nostalgia is blinding, make sure you can still see your future.