Boyhood

Journal Entry - 3.23.2025

Obviously, reading a blog about a movie will be difficult if you haven't seen it, but I can guarantee there are no spoilers in it (or at least nothing that isn't shown in the trailer). Maybe watch the trailer so I don't feel as bad if I write out of turn.

Boyhood is a story about growing up. It was filmed over the course of 12 years using the same actors, shooting for a couple of weeks each year. This allows the audience to watch the characters grow up in real time. The movie follows Mason, starting at age six, as he navigates the joy and confusion of childhood. Watching it feels like flipping through an old scrapbook you just found lying around.

I’ve seen this movie a couple of times. The first was back when it came out in 2014. I was about 12 or 13, and while I could relate to some of Mason’s growing pains, I don’t think I fully understood what the movie was really about. Almost ten years later, I watched it again—this time on a flight, right after moving away for the first time after college. And that’s when it hit me: my boyhood had come and gone.

What I think is beautiful about this movie is how it shows that we are the product of every unique experience we’ve had. When we’re born, we’re all pretty much a blank slate. But with every new friend, handshake, or unexpected moment, we start to form an identity.

I always wonder what makes siblings turn out so differently. We grow up under the same roof, with the same parents and values, but what separates us is what happens outside the house. My brothers didn’t get sent to the principal’s office in kindergarten for trying to pants their friend. I did. They didn’t have a Beatlemania phase in high school. I did. I had my own set of friends who shaped me, and they had his own set of friends who shaped them. The further we get from childhood, the more unique we become. These interactions and experiences are what make us, us.

We all have such distinct childhoods, yet in a way, they are all similar. How fortunate are we to have this shared journey to bond over, yet unique enough that we each keep parts of it to ourselves?

Along the way, what are the moments that truly shape us? It’s easy to remember the big milestones—graduations, birthdays, championships. Life, however, is really all those small, quiet moments in between. One of my most vivid childhood memories isn’t of some major event but of waking up on a summer morning to that bird chirping (you know the one), the smell of fresh-cut grass, watching cartoons with breakfast, and going to the pool later. Maybe it's my Beatlemania kicking back in, but I often think about this lyric:

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans"

Even though Boyhood follows Mason from ages six to eighteen, I like to think we never really stop growing up. Every day, we learn something new about ourselves. Sure, it’s not as exciting as making a new friend at recess, but it still counts. Life has its dull moments, but there’s something beautiful about just existing, about getting to experience something new for the first time.

I’ve wrestled with the idea that my boyhood may be over. I’ve graduated college. I’m doing my own thing now. My younger brother is off to college, and my older brother is thinking of going back to school. My friends are off on their own paths. We did our growing up. Is that it?

The time passed by so fast, and it feels unfair. Unfair that we only get to experience it once. I feel like I’m at that strange in-between age where I can no longer consider myself a kid, even though I’ve been an adult for four years now.

"I thought there would be more"

There’s a scene in this movie where the mom says this. That, to me, is the essence of where I’m at. My boyhood felt like a story that was never going to end, but now I have to come to terms with the fact that it actually has. I wish it could have lasted a little longer. I just hope I made the most of it.

Part of what’s scary is that, for the past 20-some years, being a kid was all I knew.

Being a mom was all my mom knew.

Being a dad was all my dad knew.

Being a brother was all my brothers knew.

Now, we all have to figure out what that means in a new way.

Maybe I love this movie so much because it takes place during the years I was growing up, making it feel like a time capsule of that era. I didn’t have the same hardships as Mason, but the themes of discovery and experience ring true for anyone who watches it. This isn’t a movie with a complex plot, but in Linklater fashion, it’s a dialogue-driven look at reality.

Am I doing well in life? Would my younger self be happy with how I turned out? I always hear people say, "Become someone your younger self would feel comfortable around". I like to think I have.

If you haven’t seen Boyhood, please watch it.

What a blessing it is to have that much more life ahead of me, waiting to be experienced for the first time.

But where has my boyhood gone?

my boyhood

My brothers and I would always nag my mom for taking pictures and videos. Her response: "One day you'll appreciate it". I think that day has come. Below is my boyhood captured through the lens of my mom's Facebook.