wedding road trip

Nostalgic Suicide

Walking home from the market this morning, I passed the local elementary school. Out in front of the school’s sign, a fourth grade class was posing for their yearbook picture. As I watched the kids shift and shuffle into position, I experienced an unexpected pang of sadness. As I watched the photographer desperately try to corral the group, I thought back to my own fourth grade class. I remembered running laps to impress our cross country coach, Mr. Smoot. I mused about the fat Texas jellybeans that our crazy principal handed out during lunch. I flinched as I recalled one girl who made my life a living hell, constantly criticizing my “thrift store bought” clothes.

As I watched the class finally settle into position, for a moment, just one moment, I wanted to switch places with one of those fourth graders. Each one represented so much potential, so much life. They had so many memories left to make: first day of high school, first date, first college party, first love, first heartbreak. They haven’t screwed anything up… yet.

Of course, like all bouts of nostalgia, the moment passed, but not before reminding me of a conversation Chris and I had on the road with our friends Matt and Chrissy. We had just finished belting out “High On You” by Survivor when Chrissy said, “we’ll totally recount this moment tomorrow morning. Nostalgia is a bitch.” And she’s right… I did find myself thinking about the Survivor moment the next morning, longing for the simple, pure second in which we were all (in our imaginations, anyways) in tune with one another. Funny enough, as I sit here writing about remembering that moment, I feel nostalgic about that too.

But I do agree with Chrissy… nostalgia is a bitch. Actually, it is more than a bitch… it is an enemy. A robber of joy and a spinner of false tales, nostalgia reminds of who we once thought we were, not of who we are now. Whether it be a wedding or a fourth grade class photo, nostalgia threatens to hold us in the past instead of allowing us to enjoy the present or move into the unknown future. Thanks to nostalgia, it’s likely that ten years from now, I’ll wax poetic about the days in which I was a newlywed freelance writer, meandering home from the corner store on a Wednesday morning.

I had so much potential, then.