Nostalgia

One thing I notice a lot about myself is my tendency to reminisce about… well… anything. In fact, it happens all the time. It’s quite common for me to suddenly spring backwards in time with nostalgia, bringing even the most mundane thing back to the forefront of my memory.

I’ve become nostalgic over simple things, like playing a wrestling video game or slamming a single beer while challenging my roommates at Trivial Pursuit, but it’s been equally as common with major things, like my travel destinations and general times of joy. Lately I’ll become nostalgic and consider the subject to be fit for “print” on the blog, but when I try to get the thoughts out I’ll find it hard to get the details right, to make the feeling the same to everyone who reads it.

There’s something about nostalgia that is difficult to convey in print. It’s a feeling of remembrance (that’s easy enough) but there are always details that are intangible, that one remembers unconsciously, that are nearly impossible to get out with any fluid motion. It’s a wave of memories, feelings, places, climate, smells, sights, and sounds that create an entire picture.

Nostalgia is more than just a memory of a certain time: if a memory can be seen as a single snapshot, I imagine nostalgia to be more like a multimedia affair, like a ten-year anniversary double-disk DVD re-release of your favorite movie. There are hundreds of “easter eggs” on each nostalgia trip, both of things that are easily forgotten and things that are revisited often.

I do tend to wonder, though – with all of this thought of my past swelling up within my head at the tender young age of 26, is it even possible to imagine what I’ll be like at 56 – or even older; when I’ve reached the age at which I can glance back at my past and have something a little more lengthy to consider?