Nostalgia: It Ain't What It Used to Be

The good old days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.
--Billy Joel, "Keeping the Faith," An Innocent Man, 1983

We often look back and reflect on "the good old days," a time — or times — in our lives when life was better, smells were sweeter, food was tastier ...whatever. It was better. Unless a life has been nothing but total shit, we all do it; we pine for those days again.

Or do we?

Personally, I don't want to go back. I happen to like my iPhone and my computer and my Blu-Ray player and my TiVO (even though it's been on the fritz for about a year; I need to get that fixed (HAH! Good days to come!)) and cars with reverse assist cameras and selfie-sticks. What I find myself pining for is the feeling of yesterday, because that's what nostalgia really is.

Whenever I think about "the good old days," I remember that, back then, I didn't realize that then was a time I would look back on fondly and miss. Such realization makes me wonder if today is a day, or if autumn, 2015, is a period of my life I'll look back on in 15 years, sighing and smiling.

The passage of time has a way of softening the edges of our memories, shining a golden light on those we cherish, and often sugar-coating the ones we're not so fond to recall. As I think more about the days of yore, I realize that those days weren't any better than any that have passed since. Thirty five years ago our existence was still overshadowed by the Cold War and the lingering threat of nuclear annihilation, but I still got to see all of my friends every day. In the mid-1980s I enlisted in the Air Force and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, but people bought the Yugo. I pursued a career that lasted 16 years, but its bookends were the deaths of my parents. I got married, but it ended in divorce. I'm in love with a wonderful woman, but Donald Trump.

Times are not good or bad. People fell in love and bore children while war raged. Mothers wept over their lost sons while the nation celebrated victory. Nostalgia isn't rooted in a time of our lives or in an historical era. Nostalgia is rooted in whom we surrounded ourselves with at the time and how they made us feel. And, usually, those times are associated with a period in our lives when we had fewer responsibilities and demands on our attention than we have now. It's easier to enjoy the company of friends when you don't have the insistence of a career or a young family pulling at you. The memories are sweeter when you could cuddle under a blanket with all of the kids and watch a silly movie together than when each teenager's attention is wrapped around a hand-held personal entertainment device plugged into their ears in some remote corner of the house while you sit at the kitchen table and crunch the numbers figuring out how to continue to feed them.

I believe we shouldn't pine for times that were great or special or "better." They weren't. You've lost touch with the people that made your existence then more enjoyable.

Reach out. Find those people. If lines were crossed or bridges were burned, maybe it's time for reconciliation. If it's simply that too much time has gotten between you and those people, maybe they're thinking about those "good old days," too, and a word from you out of the blue would make their day. Or their month.

But don't forget the people around you now. Take stock of them. Appreciate the good feelings you can associate with them, for they are the stuff of tomorrow's memories.



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