Silicon Valley Youth Channel

It’s late at night, around 11:30, and it is time for me to sleep. However, I don’t feel any tiredness within me. At the same time, I don’t feel like doom-scrolling until my body forces me to sleep. I open my phone and go to my camera roll. It is filled with thousands of photos, some important, some not. I scroll to the start of the camera roll. My first photo, it was one with my family when I had just gotten to Paris. The innocence shown in our smiles immediately fills me with nostalgia. I continue swiping, each photo bringing back memories from years ago. A blurry picture of my friends and me from 6th grade appears. I have slowly grown apart from them but at the moment, nothing could’ve separated us. We were all laughing, barely keeping our eyes open. I had no idea what was so funny that we were all laughing like that, but I knew at the time, it must’ve been the funniest thing ever. I keep scrolling forward. A photo of my water polo team in Hawaii after a tough loss, still smiling and enjoying the team’s company. Most of the photos were random images, screenshots, and funny moments, but they were all part of my camera roll, and part of my memories. Looking through my camera roll has made me remember so many moments that I have already forgotten. I finally put my phone down, but then I picked it back up and took a selfie, thinking someday I might come back and remember this night. And maybe, this moment will remind me why people should capture more moments of their lives. Even the smallest, most random photos, can become memories we might look back upon.