Thoughts from Nostalgia

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately as I'm getting ready to move since I've lived here my entire life. It's a fairly bipolar feeling, since I end up being excited to move to a city one day, and freaked out and sad the next because I don't want to end up leaving my friends and the only place I've ever really known.

I have a bucket list of sorts, people to see, places to go, before I leave. On Friday it happened that the person I was meeting up with got delayed, and so I got to cross something off my list that I didn't think I would have the chance to.

I wandered over to a local ice cream and candy shop that I haven't been to in at least a decade. I ordered a simple sundae and sat on a bench outside to eat it as I watched the wind rip through the street and the miscellaneous passersby.

There's nothing inherently special about that place, but it immediately brought me back to long summer evenings spent with my family out on those benches, eating and laughing before going home after a long day and falling into bed. Of course the memories are blurry, just like most memories, but comforting nonetheless.

Yet as much as I want to cling on to these places, I think it's probably time for me to move on. I've realized that a greater and greater portion of my conversations are about the past - people that used to be friends, shared experiences from years past, etc. That rapport is great to have since the common experiences create a foundation for other communication, but I can't help but think that I should be looking forward too, not just back.

The things I'm nostalgic about and that I'll miss the most are really all about the people attached to them and not so much the thing or event themselves. When I'm feeling optimistic, I think about the fact that I'll now have all sorts of room to create new memories with new people. And, there's always the bonus that I haven't ever really been able to experience the feeling of going away and then coming home to a familiar place, since I've never left.

So please pardon me if my next few blogs are sappy and/or overly nostalgic, I'm assuming that's just part of this transition and that as I settle in and create new relationships and memories it will start to lessen.