Nostalgia Coma
It has been 10 years since I have been out of high school. In a way it feels like no time has passed at all. But in another, much more real way it feels like I’ve lived several lifetimes since then. It’s crazy how much things can change, without them really changing at all. Looking from the outside, I still live in the same city, I still have a lot of the same friends, and I even still have the same boyfriend, but on the inside I feel like I don’t even know that person at all anymore. In fact, she feels more like an old friend that I admire from afar through Instagram and Facebook posts. Wishing her the best, but knowing I can’t reach out, too much time has passed.
Looking back on those days I cherish the volatility of my emotions. I wish I still had that some days. The older I got, the more hardened I became, the less I needed my friends for every little thing and the less they needed me. It’s fucked up, but sometimes I wish for a cheating scandal, or a hard break up, to drag all of my friends back together, just so we could spend another weekend rallying around one of our own. I miss the covenant of high school, and the girl gangs of college; I miss the “we’re all in this together”. But as the years flew by and we all moved into our own houses, started our own families, finally got big girl jobs, and branched out on our own. Our old wine nights and dinners became fleeting group chats and meme exchanges. I watch my friends through social media, sending them love through a like or a comment.
It sucks getting older, we try to hang onto it with reunions, and throwback music, and botox, but the clock keeps ticking. The further away we get from weekly girls nights and the closer we get to yearly reunions. But melting into a nostalgia coma is not going to bring those days back. I think of the good ole saying “if you love her let her go”. And if you love yourself, start setting out to make new memories, ones you’ll look back on in infamy, ones you wish you could go back to. When you do get the chance to dance with your friends, or share laughs around a kitchen after the bars, cherish that shit, because it’s not going to come around as often.
There is a quote in The Office that says “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ole days before you’ve actually left them”. That quote always fucked me up. Without that feeling though, we’d never appreciate what we had, and what we have now. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it is okay to miss the old days, but that’s no reason to stop trying to create something for yourself now. It is still okay to fuck up and start over, it is still okay to let your emotions get the best of you from time to time. It is still okay to not know what the fuck you’re doing - who the hell does anyway. Take a deep breath and thank God, the universe, or whoever for getting you here, then set out to make more good ole days. I’m sure you’ll make your younger self proud along the way.
