Age of Nostalgia

Recently, I’ve been thinking about nostalgia. One, because I’m a college senior, and two, because I remembered I started saving the clothing I’d outgrown as a child in a box called “Clothes for future children” as an eighth grader. So, at 13, I created my own source of future nostalgia. It’s interesting to think about when we begin to see time as something we are unable to get back, and if there’s an age or experiential requirement for nostalgia. Can it really distort things into appearing “better” than they were? 

The power of nostalgia can mentally transport us somewhere in the span of a few minutes. I can go from being physically at a fraternity party to hearing Matchbox Twenty’s Unwell over the speakers to riding home from Costco with my mom in 2006. I can see it all so clearly: bringing the groceries inside, the sound of the front door, seeing my neighbors across the street. I’d go to school the next day only to come home “sick” so that I could watch Nickelodeon while my mom made me lunch. My dad would ask how I was doing when he got home from work—sometime after dinner was in the oven, but before my brother’s Boy Scout troop meeting. All of this while standing in the middle of a fraternity party; all of this from a song. I am grateful for memories like these—ones that didn’t want anything from me, memories that weren’t trying to convince me of anything. 

But, nostalgia can be strong when it isn’t wanted—like a drug that I didn't know I was using. The side effects of it are especially potent now because of technology and social media. My phone, like most people’s, was a repository of photos, messages and notes. It made feeling nostalgic easy because there was documented evidence of everything that had come before me. I mean, phones send reminders of what was happening “One Year Ago Today,” as does Snapchat with its “On This Day….” feature. The past is right in my pocket, something I can always revisit like a museum with exhibits and archives. I can get stuck thinking of things that could have been; things that didn’t want me to say goodbye. The “could have been” isn’t a place to be though; in fact, it isn’t a place at all. At times like these, I don’t know if nostalgia is my friend or just someone to spend time with when I am reminded to. 

In any case, nostalgia stretches across a wide plane because it starts whenever we do. It’s a signifier of times gone by that could be souvenirs as much as they could be scars. It is something that we inevitably carry with us, and like anything we carry with us, we can forget it’s there until a reminder comes along. It’s uncertain whether or not nostalgia changes the past or transforms memories, but maybe I’ll have a better idea when I reopen the box.