Recently, mom shared a video of grandma filming my brothers and I in the playroom, taking turns scrambling seafood stir-fry in the game Cooking Mama on the Wii. Seeing the room and hearing us laughing as kids brought back a rush of nostalgia for a very special part of my childhood — the playroom. That’s what mom called it. The cozy room in the corner of the second floor of our house.

Growing up as the second of three brothers, we were inseparable. Sometimes we fought, cried, and yelled, but that was just us growing up together. We were very different in our own ways, and despite being 3 and 4 years apart, what never failed to bring us together over the years was the playroom. In there, we were a team with a clear goal. To have as much fun as possible.

I still remember waking up on a Saturday morning to find my little brother, 6 years old, playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, with the plastic guitar laid across his lap like a keyboard, since his hand was too small to wrap around its neck. I’d go in, watch, and then demand for my turn. Shortly after we’d hear mom calling for us to eat breakfast. I remember the morning after Christmas, when we each received our own Bionicle, how we fought over who got which one, and then happily spending the entire afternoon building them and pretending to battle each other.

I remember hours spent taking turns on the big boxy PC in the corner of the room, which ran on Windows XP, from chopping trees in Runescape, to fighting zombie mobs in Counterstrike, to our first time playing League of Legends. I remember the pure excitement of discovering and exploring new games with my brothers, far, far away from the rest of the world.

The playroom was my happy place, my safe haven. As the pressures of growing up crept in, I remember wandering in alone after school, lying down on the small white couch against the wall. As I lay there on its dense yet soft fabric, my problems would wash away. At the same time, it would occur to me that the three of us were spending less and less time in there together.

One day in my senior year of high school, we moved out of that house forever. Without any acknowledgement that it was the end of a very specific, yet meaningful time in our lives, the movers had packed it all away. Staring at the empty playroom, with nothing but carpet and some crayon marks on the wall, the memories came rushing back to me. I wondered, “when was the last time we all hung out here as three brothers, with little care in the world other than wanting to have fun?” For some reason, I could not remember.

The joy of childhood is fleeting. We only seem to understand this when looking back. My brothers and I are older now, living our separate lives. But every now and then something pulls me back to our playroom — a familiar rock song, a game we once played together, the sound of kids laughing nearby. I’m reminded that the moments that matter most are not often the ones we think to hold onto. I’m reminded to pay attention.