Nostalgia Is Going to Be the Death of Me

I have a bad habit of mourning phases of my life and versions of myself that aren’t even necessarily gone. I’ll find myself looking back at photos of my 17-year-old self and thinking that was my “prime” and that I’ll never look or feel that good again—except that wasn’t even two years ago. The funny part is that if you had asked me at the time, I would’ve definitely had something to complain about. And I’ll probably end up feeling this way about myself now. It’s a never ending cycle. 

Sometimes, I’ll look back at points of my life and think about how I would do anything to go back. It’s funny because I don’t even necessarily remember loving those moments when I was living them. I think I tend to view the past through rose-colored lenses and view it as something better than it was. It’s as if our memories have a way of filtering out the mundane of the past. 

Back in high school, I remember genuinely counting down the days until I would graduate, and while I’m definitely not saying I would love to go back to high school, I do think in hindsight, I just miss the simplicity of it. I’ll talk to my friends who are far and out-of-state for college and feel this deep sense of mourning because these are the same friends I used to be able to go get froyo or go to the movies with whenever we felt like it, and now we have to schedule phone calls. It feels like this countdown looming over us because now, every conversation is full of, “When are you gonna be in town?” and talking about how much we miss each other. Then it hits me that there’s no going back to simply just hanging out whenever we wanted. Now. every time we hang out, it’s filled with this feeling of needing to make it count. 

I also think that the reason why this sense of nostalgia feels so intense right now is because it’s constantly fed to us. The catchphrase, “2016 is so back”, the rise of the whole “2014 tumblr girl”, or simply when you open TikTok for five minutes, there’s someone romanticizing the 2010s, and it definitely isn’t helping anyone move on from the past. I’m not sitting here hating these aesthetics (because I’ve definitely been enjoying them!), but I’ve noticed this emergence of young people grieving a point in time that wasn’t even that long ago. Instead of simply letting trends go, the internet holds onto it. 

A good example of this is Kylie Jenner bringing back her King Kylie era. Many have pointed out that she’s so young to already be bringing back iconic eras of her life. She’s not some retired celebrity looking back at an era from thirty years ago; she’s only 29 and bringing back an era from when she was a teenager. This wasn’t even necessarily celebrating Kylie—people were basking in a feeling. 

The same thing goes for entertainment. Disney keeps coming out with a new remake, shows like iCarly and Victorious have returned in new reboots, and it feels like there’s constantly a push to bring back certain eras. There’s nothing wrong with revisiting things people loved, but I definitely think that a lot of these remakes, especially in children’s media, are definitely more for the adults who grew up with it than it is for actual children in today’s age. With the Wizards of Waverly Place reboot, a lot of fans were unhappy with the course of the reboot and even mentioned it ruined the original show for them, thus ruining the childhood magic of the show. It goes to show that when the same ideas keep being recycled, it takes away from the feeling it initially gave in the first place.

Nostalgia isn’t a bad thing. It’s a comforting feeling that connects us to ourselves and others. But if we’re constantly stuck chasing the same high from the past, there’s no room to look at and enjoy what’s in front of us. I think this isn’t even necessarily about missing the past itself, but missing the simplicity, security, or a version of myself that wasn’t as overwhelmed by everything. There’s a highly likely chance in the future, I’ll find myself longing for this exact stage in my life, too. I don’t think I’ll ever escape this loop of nostalgia, but maybe the best way to honor these memories isn’t by trying to relive them, and instead, simply appreciating it for what it was and moving forward to creating new things to look back at. 

• 2010s
• 2016
• hcusf
• high school
• life
• nostalgia
• the past
• tumblr