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Change is my mind-killer.
The slight bit of change irks me. It creeps under my skin, tears through my nerves, rattling my bones with anxiety. In all these years, Iā€™ve wrestled with change, attempted to strangle it, to tame it down, to snuff it out. But when I couldnā€™t deal with change, I turned to another old friend, who welcomed me with a warm hug.
Nostalgia.
Nostalgia typically evokes that warm, fuzzy part of your brain. It can be anything from Christmas mornings as a kid to sticky summers spent by the pool. But as I grow older and teeter on the precipice of adulthood, Iā€™ve observed that nostalgia can sometimes hold us back.
For example, Iā€™ve noticed a lot of pandemic nostalgia. People refer to those quarantine days as a peaceful break spent making dalgona coffee and watching TikToks. And while that may be true, it was still a literal pandemic happening around us. There was widespread uncertainty, fear, and disinformation that plagued us during those months. Yet, just the other day, I found myself agreeing in a conversation with peers about wishing we could go back to being quarantined.
But when I came home and looked back at old pictures from that year, I remembered just how miserable I was. Those months were some of the darkest Iā€™ve ever experienced.
Nostalgia tends to warp our memories at times, and for me, it can be particularly painful. I yearn for past times with certain individuals, and it stops me from moving on when theyā€™re no longer in my life. I view my time with these people through the rose-tinted lens of nostalgia and idealize the memories I have with them.
There is a fine line between looking back fondly at the past and letting nostalgia entrap you, and itā€™s a line I toe far too often. However, Iā€™ve come to realize that I can only retreat from the present for so long. The past is a springboard for my future, and I want to use it to honor my history while continuing to write new chapters in my life.
And so, each day I try not to hide behind nostalgia to wrangle or tame change. Instead ā€”albeit awkwardlyā€”
I dance with it.