I think it’s nostalgia.
That sweet feeling made out of longing.
Remembering the days at the beach, in our youthfulness.
Laughter echoing in the sand, staying present in everything.
The younger we were, the less real the past was.
The less needy we were of the future.
We just naturally stayed in the moment, without knowing we were in the most unending time of our lives.
I don’t grieve my youth, I grieve the ease in which I lived in my youth.
And now, well now it’s not that we no longer laugh, or have new memories, it is that we don’t lose ourselves in those moments.
We have forgotten how to lose ourselves.
It is divine you know?
The losing of oneself.
Pure divinity.
I remember it well.
And why I love being nostalgic.
The romance of remembering the details of a regular day.
The routine of seeming nothingness, oh God.
The luxury.
My walks back from the beach in the burning sun, running home.
The new friends I made on a summer’s day, while hanging next to the ocean.
Never to see them again.
The people who sat next to me on flights.
Where we told each other everything, only to wave goodbye knowing that was the end.
My wet shoes from the rain in Northern England when I would take the bus home.
I was just 18.
Being lost in the weather, the ocean, the normalcy.
Oh the normalcy. I miss that the most. (Click to tweet!)
Almost as much as I miss my innocence.
Now that is a perfect day.
You see, this is why I love being nostalgic, it heals me.
In so many ways. With so many rememberings.
After all, life is the infinite cycle of learning and unlearning of the one and only truth.
Letting go of one self in the midst of a normal day.
The biggest gift we could ever receive.
The hardest thing to hold on to.
With nostalgia,
Christina
P.S. I did a 3 min Dear Life episode just for you. Listen here.
Carefree, endless summers.
Even in the everyday, I woke with an excitement for what the new day held in store.
How lovely it is to remember those days with a smiling appreciation.
How absolutely delicious life tasted before the one thing that turns us on our heads.
To be able to, just for a moment, bring it all to the forefront of our minds, recalling & savoring it, as if it were taking place in THIS moment, is a precious gift to treasure.
I grieve the ease in which I lived in my marriage. I grieve the loss of the feeling of ease in life and probably will every day for the rest of mine. Nostalgia is still too painful for me. Like the early days of grief when our systems just shut down and block out all the horrid details of illness and death, I shut down memories because they bring a painful reminder of all that has been lost and all that will never be again. It’s a slow process, but I live for the day that I can find joy in the memories because he is so worth remembering.
thank you Christina