(Blog #11) - Frozen Yogurt Shop

It’s funny how the mind holds onto things. For years, I carried this specific blueprint in my head: a hot summer evening, the stickiness of the night air, and a sudden plunge into a frozen yogurt shop. In my mind, it always felt like a liminal space. It was dark outside, but inside was this harsh, clinical fluorescent lighting bouncing off white tiles and metal handles. It felt frozen in time, like a glitch in the late-nineties matrix.

For the longest time, I assumed I made it up because I was so young. Memory from that single-digit age is notoriously fluid, easily stitched together from old commercials and wishful thinking. I truly believed it was just a daydream.

Then last month, I reconnected with a friend from that old neighborhood. We were trading random, fragmented stories from our childhood when he suddenly brought up that exact spot. He described the heavy glass door, the sticky floor by the toppings bar, and how tragic it was when they tore it down.

I just sat there, stunned. He gave me the ultimate gift: confirmation. That weird, fluorescent place wasn't a phantom trick of my brain. It existed. It is a strange comfort knowing my youth wasn’t just a series of imagined spaces, but real corners of a world that simply moved on without us.