The Thought of Nostalgia

Nostalgia – “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” (Merriam-Webster).

Nostalgia is a fickle thing, but that’s to be expected with emotions. She’s the bittersweet sensation of a happy memory marred by saddening circumstances, the art of loving the past and hating that you’re in the present, never to return. Nostalgia is wistful, but not strictly in that dreamy, happy, mystical state. There’s always going to be that touch of tragic, that one detail that tracks all over the happy state with muddy footprints of sadness to evoke both emotions all at once.

I think it’s worth it – nostalgia, that is. Maybe that’s just the artist in me, I wouldn’t really know. Even though it has to taint a happy memory to exist, it somehow is mostly worth it. If you’ve never truly experienced the way nostalgia wraps you up, pulls you in, slows down time and slowly muddies the joyful life out of you with reality and wishful longing during your remembrance of happier times, then I pity you. Your life must be so boring and uneventful to have never been in the position to experience and remember impactful gain and loss. 

Sometimes, nostalgia will just be there. She doesn’t always give explanations, but sometimes you can figure it out on your own.

Nostalgia is forever walking the line between what we simply call happy and sad. 

What evokes nostalgia for you?