Since I was a child, I have had a propensity for nostalgia. I’m not sure where it came from or how I got my head around it with so little experience behind me, but there it is. Perhaps I learned it from my mother, who has had much in her life to long for; perhaps it came to me through the blood of my Slavic ancestors, who have made an art of wistful (and occasionally bitter) remembrance and living in the past – I don’t know. What I do know is that even when I was 14 years old, in the first romantic relationship of my life, I instinctively looked forward and anticipated looking back on it when it was all over. I found a way to be nostalgic for something I hadn’t even lost yet. It was a self-indulgent practice, but one that fed my writing. It’s also one that I’ve struggled to eliminate (with some success) over the years.
Autumn is the best season for nostalgia. In the waning of the year, it seems natural to take stock of what you’ve had and seen and heard and loved, and it’s only natural to remember something missing and mourn its absence. This morning, the sky as I drove to the office was a fall sky, the first of the year: sunshine and blue juxtaposed against gray thunderheads; the lake ruffled by a not-quite-wind that’s still more than a breeze. I was listening to New Order, which has been in my head since I watched 24 Hour Party People (highly recommended!) last night, and at one point, rounding a corner in Evanston, the sun on the water, just at the beginning of True Faith, I felt a stab of something that was almost like pain, but not quite. It was a familiar feeling, one I knew from long ago. It occurred to me half a second later that it was a bolt of pure nostalgia, rife with angst and drama, hearkening all the way back to those high school years when I’d torment myself with thoughts of how things would be when they weren’t so good anymore. I’ve missed things since then, lord knows I’ve had my heart broken more than once, but I don’t know if I’ve had a moment this pristine. I can’t blame Bernard & the gang for it, really, although it’s true that they were my favorites back in ‘86. It’s me that brought this up, it’s me that’s feeling it. So what’s going on? It’s been a rough month, but so? I’ve had rough months. But here’s the thing: I really am longing for a time when things were simpler, or at least seemed to be. I feel so old saying that, and so dramatic and so immature all at the same time. But I can’t find better words for this feeling. I have been scarred by a recent encounter with a virtual stranger – in particular, my trust has been broken, and it’s spilling out of that encounter and into the rest of my life. I won’t get into all the details here, but I allowed myself to be lured in and now I’m paying for it. I actually caught myself last night distrusting a good friend because of this experience. How quickly, I thought then and am still thinking now – how easily I can be broken, after all. Is it just this one experience I’m feeling the brunt of, or the weight of a collection? I never thought I was one to hold a grudge, but am I?
It’s a disturbing thought, that I might be changing in this particular way. I’m interested to see what will happen – can I shrug off the shroud that this past month has thrown over me? How quickly can I go back to being myself, even if myself is too open an idiot for her own good? I don’t want to distrust people, even though I’m often told it’s an exercise I should learn. Constantly asking myself if someone’s trying to deceive me strikes me as much the same kind of exercise in futility as the preemptive nostalgia of my younger days. And this year, I’d rather spend my free time playing in the leaves.