Do you remember your eighth birthday, Sienna? The one with the Mentos gum? Of course you do. How could you forget? I'm the one who's starting to forget, starting to lose the details. You know? Like how you can hear a song and remember being somewhere with someone but it's all very vague, and all you can remember is how you felt when that song was playing, but everything else is just a blur. No, I'll bet you probably don't know that feeling. Not yet. What you know, with a clarity I envy almost as much as sleep, is the incredible feeling of how you felt on that day you were given a treasure tin of Mentos gum.

It was your birthday, which automatically granted you a good mood. You got picked up from school and your mom knew how to make you feel special on that day. She drove you to the center of the city filled with the hope of growing shops and bustling restaurants, where your grandpa lived in his apartment orange complex.

You walked through the buildings glistening marble floors, the familiar cool air that contrasting the hot Florida sun guiding you down the hallway to the sixth door on the fourth floor. For fun, you would always grab the cool metal handle and use it to knock on the door.

You would then hear your grandpa say “coming!” or perhaps something even along the line of “and what do we have here?” and you would stand there in anticipation of the hug he would give you once the door would open and the familiar scent of the apartment would catch you. But on that day, on your birthday, when the door opened, there was a surprise: pink ribbon hanging from the hanging light, a gift or two on the table, colored tissue paper and trinkets. Somehow, you hadn't expected this. You didn't know what to expect. Life was full of surprises then, a new one everyday.

You stood in awe and your mom smiled. She had done most of this, you presumed. You got a booming “Happy birthday” from your grandpa, and to this day you remember fondly the smile in his voice. But in your memory of that afternoon, what stands out most sharply isn't the decoration, isn't the (probably) fancy dinner you had, or the (most likely) ice cream cake afterward. It's a sparkly pink and purple a treasure tin of Mentos bubble gum. It was there on grandpa's table, just past his front door, waiting for you: that swirly mix of artificial pink and blue that will forever be to you the taste of birthday.

And you were a ball of energy. You were perhaps running around the large table made of black wood and untold stories, singing or dancing in the peaceful amber glow of the timeless chandelier above it. That's the image of you cemented in my memory forever: carefree, twirling in circles, and in the background flashes of pink birthday decor and tissue-lined gift bags, framing the one item in that fading memory that's still crystal clear: that majestic treasure tin of Mentos gum.

You must have felt intense joy in that moment. Someone had gotten you gum, knowing that it would make your day and it was the perfect thing. Little things are underrated. You are - or rather I am - fifteen now, almost sixteen. I don't even remember what I did on my last birthday. I'm sure it was something fabulous, but things don't feel the same as they used to. My grandfather - who greeted you and hugged you at his door - has been dead for almost three years. The city block where his apartment used to be is now an upscale urban promenade, scarcely recognizable. If I got a pack of bubble gum right now, it wouldn't come in a treasure tin, and it wouldn't produce joy so intense that I'd have to fight hard to control myself from running around. Yet, perhaps that's okay. Happiness seems more complicated to me now than it ever was for you, more elusive. But I also can't help but believe that just means the payoff will be greater when I finally find it. That perfect day for you can't stay my gold standard forever. But please know, Sienna, that I'll continue to search for that next treasure tin of gum, for that next perfect day. You know as well as I that the best things always come when you least expect them.