I've Been Feeling Nostalgic

Morning (Fading)
by Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max

The Veritas Class of 2025 graduated maybe two weeks ago. I'm very proud of all of them and all they've achieved, but when I watched them toss their caps up, I felt a pang of sadness in my stomach, and I have to admit that I got pretty close to crying. I get that same feeling when I see friends from elementary school post pictures on Instagram, or when I visit my old neighborhood and have to pass by the house I no longer live in. 

Nostalgia is something all of us have felt. Maybe it's that song from 2018 that brings you back to fifth grade, or that outfit you passed down to your younger sibling. The Oxford dictionary defines it as "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations." Nostalgia is a remembrance of former happiness. Why, then, does it hurt?

"One can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed." -- Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow

I have visited my old house three times since I moved out about five years ago. The first of those times was in the dark in the backseat of my parents' car, around a year after we moved. I couldn't see the house, nor could I see whether it still looked the way I remembered. I had not visited since then up until a few weeks ago, when I was in the area and thought I'd swing by since I had time to kill. It was the first time I had ever driven in my neighborhood, because when I lived there, I was not old enough to drive. During the second visit, I felt a strong sense of dissonance. There was dissonance in the fact that while I hold emotional attachment to the house, it is no longer mine. In my head, it belongs to me. In reality, I can't linger in front of the driveway too long without looking like a creep. Yesterday, on the third visit, I think I figured out why that dissonance pains me. 

I grew up in the old house. My handprints were stamped into the driveway when my dad repaired it, and are still there today. When I stand outside, I can look up and see the window that I looked out of hundreds of times, because it used to be my window. The same playhouse lives in the backyard, and there are teenagers playing basketball at the park next door, just like when I lived there. Everything is exactly the same, except that someone else's kid lives in my room now. 

"How anxiously I yearned for those I had forsaken." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Dreams of a Ridiculous Man

When I watched the Class of 2025 graduate, I felt sad for two reasons. The first is that it made me realize that these people who have been consistent characters in my life for four years will no longer be there. I will still go to class with the same teachers in the same rooms, but suddenly those classmates will have vanished. The second reason is that I realized that in one year's time, my position will be vacated just like theirs is. I will be someone underclassmen never knew, and whose picture slowly fades.

"What was, was. With all his young will, he could not alter it." -- D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers

So what's the point of all this? Why am I sitting here telling you about all this sad stuff? It's because I think I figured out why it is that we feel nostalgic (or at least why I do). At its core, we are nostalgic because we are prideful. We build emotional attachment to memories, and to the people and places we built those memories with. When we visit these people and places years down the line, it forces us to realize that, contrary to popular belief, we are not as important as we think. Even in our absence, the world keeps spinning. Things keep changing. People grow up and grow old with no respect for your memories of them, and neighborhoods repave and repaint without any regard for how you feel about the paint splatters that used to be there. Seeing the difference between how you remember things and how they are now forces us to realize that our role was not the one that made a difference. The version of the world that I was a part of does not exist anymore. If my world isn't there anymore, then my role in it doesn't exist anymore either. Yet the world keeps moving, leading to the conclusion that my role wasn't important in the first place. 

"No matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely." -- Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow

Nostalgia hurts. But at the same time, there's a sense of peace in it. People and places change. They will always change. However, they can never be made entirely new. They will always carry some piece of the role they once played. So while we see the change and recognize how unimportant it makes us seem, we can also find comfort in the counterbalance of the things that have stayed the same. 

Am I ever going to get over nostalgia? Probably not. It's more likely that I'll keep finding things to cry about each time I realize I can't hold onto the present, until eventually I figure out my future and realize I don't want to go back to the past. I fully recognize that this is probably one of my cringiest blog posts, but I honestly don't care. Sue me if you want, but I'm going to be busy lamenting over my art from kindergarten. 

"Moments, when lost, can't be found again. They're just gone." -- Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty