The concept of nostalgia is something that has embellished and haunted my sense of remembrance for quite awhile. Dating back to 1668, it's been referred to as a mental disease, homesickness, and now simply as a sentimental longing for the past. I refer to it, however, as the unexpected contemplation of wonderful memories of my simple "childhood" which make me feel like shit about my current situation (I say this in the most dramatic way possible of course) as a maturing woman.
It's really fucking weird, when some sort of sensory thing triggers an encounter with a vivid depiction of a time or a person or a place.. Rather abruptly you are taken back to this segment of your life which appears as a distorted blur of happiness. If only you could abandon the present and wallow in the past which, with the ticking of the clock, has transformed into a very abstract memory. This overwhelming feeling, "nostalgia", is what I am talking about and we all know it quite well.
But lately as nostalgia appears as a close and comforting old friend, I am struck rather abruptly with the notion that I am yearning to be in this moment that I don't think I fully appreciated at the time.
One way I look at it is that sometimes in life we spend a great deal of time "searching" for these ravishing moments where we are I guess, content, fulfilled, happy. We finally get a little dosage of this, but due to the distractions of bul shit which interrupt the peace of our bodies and our minds, we forget to fully appreciate them. They immediately vanish and are forgotten about. However, time passes and one day we are are greeted by a distinct smell, old photos lost on our computer, the vibrations of an old favorite song, or we spontaneously find ourselves back at a distant location, all little details that seem like portions of our past lives- but suddenly we are forced down this path way of reminiscence, we start to miss it a little, get a little sappy, maybe a little upset, this is nostalgia.
Whether you look at it as brief mental time travel or reminiscing on the days gone by, this "feeling" forces us to see our past as seductive and intriguing, yet often times it leaves us with an eerie gleam casted over our lives which we cannot seem to stop dwelling on.
Looking back on my past years of adolescence- the friends I had, the humble places where we killed time, the "things" we did that managed to bring us all together- I remember it as a blur of euphoria, it all appears rather picture perfect- and naturally I am filled with this "longing for the past,". But contrary to these romantic memories floating about in my mind, things really weren't so picture perfect. It is just nostalgia allowing me to remembering these fragments of the past with these glasses of optimism and idealism.
But why is that? According to various research, your mental, emotional and neurophysiological states define specific moments in your life, but as you look back on it it's not even possible to put yourself back in the same mental state you were in before, SO as you change, so does the way you perceive this memory, altering it's emotional representation. Professor David H. Sanford (1979) described nostalgia as "positively toned evocation of the past, the nostalgic experience is infused with imputations of past beauty, pleasure, joy, satisfaction, goodness, happiness, love", and this is EXACTLY what makes remembering so god damn seductive, alluring, and romantic.
In whatever way we are affected by the traces of time or however progressing neurophysical states alter our memories, nostalgia allows us to remember the past in the most picture-esque light, and whether it truly was that way at the time, doesn't really matter. All the time people recall portions of the past as "the good ol' days, the happiest days of their lives", but it couldn't possibly of been that simple. Perhaps we'll say the same when we look back on these times, with our distorted hazy blurry blissful optimistic glasses of nostalgia and remember everything beautifully.
And really, that is comforting enough.
art by Lara Edwards
With that being said I really want to have a playlist centered around this because music has been the most nostalgia inducing thing for me, but that is very personal so I can't put up a FEEL NOSTALGIC PLAYLIST, because that is something you have to do on your own. however, I can make a playlist that tries to embody a nostalgic vibe which is basically that whole bitter sweet pensive thing/ or in other words what I'm trying to do which is,
art by Lara Edwards
