Get Back to Where You Once Belonged

I seriously dislike the word nostalgia. It is a musty word. A word that connotes clothes that have been too long in a cedar closet. Or a gumball covered with lint emerging from your pocket. And yet, if you keep it in the right context personal nostalgia can be both incredibly enjoyable and illuminating. 

I spent ten days over the last two weeks engaging in some personal nostalgia. I visited friends from my college days at the University of South Carolina, and then went to Charlottesville, Virginia to spend time with a close friend from my working life. The trip was very gratifying, not least because it was good to be on the move again after the COVID isolation, but also because it forced me to think back on who I was at specific times of my life and how that long ago self still inhabits who I am today. 

Life generally forces us to live in the present. There are so many things that must be dealt with on a daily basis that it is not possible to give much thought to our past iterations. Even when we do so, it tends to be very cursory, calling to mind a memory here or there that makes us smile, or cringe. We (or at least I) rarely think hard about the odyssey that got us here. 

Immersing myself in that past, even for a few days, forced that reflection, especially as my trip entailed many hours alone in a car with a cell phone that would not recharge (just try to find a decent radio station outside Fayetteville, North Carolina). The memories flooded back. I conjured up people I haven’t thought about for years, even though I often could not recall their names. I thought of times that were great fun, as well as times of great guilelessness and stupidity. The person I was seemed both a distant relative and a boon companion. 

Spending time with lifelong friends takes you down that rabbit hole even more. People often comment how very quickly you fall back into comfortable patterns of communication and interaction with old friends. How a part of you that you haven’t seen for some time reemerges. I find that very true.  

I think, however, it is more than just a passing dive into nostalgic revery. The person I was 40 years ago has never left me. The essence of who I am today is tied very closely to who I was then. The so-called formative years were not only childhood, but each swerve along the path, through college and law school, into the early years of working up to my last days before retirement, all leading up to where I am now. 

That doesn’t mean that things haven’t changed. It’s impossible to go through life, with its many twists and turns, and remain exactly the same. I know that fewer things strike me as funny than once did, and I miss that. I also know that I was ridiculously naïve and innocent, and while innocence may seem like a blissful state, it is unsustainable, and not even preferable, unless you’re willing to put your head in the proverbial sand.  

Regardless of those changes, falling back in old rhythms for a while strikes me as very healthy. It reminded me that, even now, personality is not static. Time never stops, and neither does our development. I continue to build on the edifice (shaky as is) of what has gone before. Who I am is an on-going question that is never fully answered. 

Just as important, it is great fun. Being able to kick back and relax with people who have seen you at your best and worse is cathartic. You’re able to pull out refences that make sense to no one else (e.g., the trestle, home run derby, Fencourt), and riff on them. And there is nothing to do but laugh at yourself and the silly things you did. 

Testing memory is, of course, a mixed bag. Many incidents come rushing back, but how many of those incidents are as I recall, is very up for grabs. Did I really do the things I think I did, as I remember doing them? Maybe yes, maybe no.  To what extent am I editing my history? Who’s to say. My friends’ memories are as suspect as mine, and luckily there were no cell phone cameras in those days to resolve any discrepancies. 

All that being said, I would not want to live in that nostalgic haze. The temptation to do so is why nostalgia has such a negative connotation. Memory has a tendency to whitewash the past. I remember much more of the good than the bad. It is dangerous to get too caught up in that and see the bygone days of youth as some idyll. The reality of the present can sour in the glare of such a fantasy, and that is a living death. 

The truth of the matter is that I would not want to go back. There would be too much to give up. For all of the ups and downs of the last 63 years, there are still things to look forward to. And while the past inhabits who I am today, it is no longer me, with all my flaws, anxieties and regrets, but also with all my hopefulness (still somewhat an innocent) and excitement about each new day. 

I know that I am going to keep connecting with old friends. They are just too important to discard, and too much fun to be around. Plus, in a way I can’t really define, looking back at the past helps me appreciate what I have now. It’s a very odd process, this thing called life.