Bittersweet nostalgia

Lily Pawliczak, Contributing Writer

As I move out of this year’s winter and into the fickle warmth of early spring, it feels as though I’m tugging along some extra weight. On my way to class, to the coffee shop I’ve been frequenting — even from my bed to the kitchen down the hall. It latches onto my ankle like a ball and chain. I quite often find myself swallowing the urge to check my shoulder to see what could be pulling me back, almost beckoning. 

Last week, my resolution wavered and I finally turned around. 

The week before I had driven back from visiting a dear friend in Charleston for just a few days of laughter and easily made memories. My time there was not long but with very little effort it quickly grew into a tangible memory that I now had the responsibility of bringing back home with me. 

I reflected on the weekend the minute I drove up my street and parked outside of my house, and for some reason, I grew angry. The next few days, I found myself comparing the interactions and events of my day to the fun, happy, fleeting moments of the weekend before. I couldn’t find the usual solace in the familiarity of my curated routine and friends at school and I couldn’t understand why. 

Now, finally looking back at the ball and chain that has been dragging at my feet since getting back, I’m faced with nostalgia as if it were an old friend that walked up to me that I hadn’t seen in a while. 

Nostalgia is ever-present in everyone’s lives. I have many memories that I look back on and wish I could be there again — if only time hadn’t gone so quickly. I see it play out in the lives around me; my dad constantly, endearingly retells stories and memories of his younger days so many times over — belly laughing just picturing it — that I sometimes wish I could’ve been there too. What a great time it must’ve been back then.  

I see it in the media too, in all of the automated flashbacks on every social media app I have. It almost forces you to reminisce about the past — even if it’s just a picture with that weird dog face filter that you thought looked great at the time. 

It makes me wonder if nostalgia is always a good thing to have. How I felt after coming back from visiting my friend, upset and wistful — that wasn’t actually how I felt about that weekend. Why do I feel that way when thinking about it now? Will I feel this way every time I leave a time when I was happy? 

Something that makes me jealous of my own experience can’t be a good thing. I want to be able to appreciate the fact that I have people in my life who make me laugh to the point that I don’t want the moment to end. So what is nostalgia there for, other than to remind me of a past that I can’t go back to? 

I’m reminded then of my dad, doubled over at the dinner table, talking about how he and his roommates got caught by his RA when he was in college — something about being drunk and an overflowing kiddy pool in his dorm. Without nostalgia, what could have urged him to recount the laughter he shared with his friends? It’s the same feeling that I had been so frustrated with, that urged me to turn around and watch a good memory play out from the week before. 

I think it might be because I’m still immature, the fact that I became so upset that I couldn’t recognize when to enjoy what I had already experienced or that the only thing left to do was recount the story in laughter. 

Although nostalgia still makes me feel like something large and sharp is sitting on my chest, it might be a side effect I have to bear. I’m glad it can also remind me of something I had hoped would never end. It’s a privilege to yearn for your own memories, and I don’t think I could appreciate my friends as much as I do without nostalgia dragging me back to them every so often.