S.M.Sicard, circa 2009 Spring for me has always been a weird time of year. I can’t tell you why, but when the weather turns from cold to warm, I become undeniably nostalgic. It happens every year.
People used to consider nostalgia to be a disease, an incurable longing for yesteryear. Those afflicted romanticize the past and seek refuge in it. In the springtime, I become one such person.
Perhaps it is worse than usual, seeing as this has been a year of change. In the last 12 months, I graduated college, moved to DC, got a job, quit that job and got a new one, moved into a new apartment and got a cat. And that barely grazes the surface. All this change has me retreating back to the past, to a sense of familiarity.
This week, I watched Titanic. I was obsessed with the ship, not so much the movie, as a kid. And something about hearing the low dulcet tones of a “Hymn to the Sea” brought me back to when I was young, and when I thought everything and anything was possible. I thought life would be as epic as soundtrack music makes movies feel.
I wish I knew when I was 13 that the life I have now is the one that would be mine. Some people have a fine sense of what they’re going to do and how to get there—it’s simple and formulaic. I didn’t then, still don’t now. But going into high school I thought I would go to college, major in something exciting, passionately fall in love and have a great life of adventure thereafter. I used lay around listening to music on my mp3 player daydreaming about a life of escapades and epic, heroic romanticism.
Life isn’t like a love song. It isn’t like a movie. But this week, I’ve been retreating into old romantic comedies, my own naïve poetry, and nostalgic playlists to see if I could maybe renew my sense of wonder.
A decade ago I felt like I could do anything, be anyone. And now I’m here, in DC, actually being someone. I’m arguably much more successful than anyone in elementary, middle or high school expected me to be, but I don’t feel like I can be or do anything I want anymore.
Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like to be untethered—to leave this marble city behind and find something new. It scares me how easy I think it would be to leave this all. I won’t, because I am not rash enough. But I do fantasize about lying in a field under the Tuscan sun or standing on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover. Perhaps that is the artist in me, the one I stifled in order to be who I am now.
Even as I type this, I am itching at my desk to be anywhere but my office. Maybe I should have studied painting or creative writing. The reason I didn’t is because everyone told me I would have no future in it. Maybe they were wrong, and I was wrong to believe them. I will never know. But that nostalgic artist in me is at war with the politically ambitious outer layer that I wear every day.
This is not to discredit my amazing life, which is nothing shy of magnificent. I just wonder if I could have a different, equally splendid life doing something else, somewhere else.
I chalk it up to it being springtime. Like the calm, seasonal warmth that has settled briefly over the city, so too has my nostalgia over me. It will pass, as all things do, and my history will stay where it belongs, behind me.
Nostalgia makes you want to go back, but you can’t spell it without “no.” And no, you can never go back to the way things once were.
— Sarah
People used to consider nostalgia to be a disease, an incurable longing for yesteryear. Those afflicted romanticize the past and seek refuge in it. In the springtime, I become one such person.
Perhaps it is worse than usual, seeing as this has been a year of change. In the last 12 months, I graduated college, moved to DC, got a job, quit that job and got a new one, moved into a new apartment and got a cat. And that barely grazes the surface. All this change has me retreating back to the past, to a sense of familiarity.
This week, I watched Titanic. I was obsessed with the ship, not so much the movie, as a kid. And something about hearing the low dulcet tones of a “Hymn to the Sea” brought me back to when I was young, and when I thought everything and anything was possible. I thought life would be as epic as soundtrack music makes movies feel.
I wish I knew when I was 13 that the life I have now is the one that would be mine. Some people have a fine sense of what they’re going to do and how to get there—it’s simple and formulaic. I didn’t then, still don’t now. But going into high school I thought I would go to college, major in something exciting, passionately fall in love and have a great life of adventure thereafter. I used lay around listening to music on my mp3 player daydreaming about a life of escapades and epic, heroic romanticism.
Life isn’t like a love song. It isn’t like a movie. But this week, I’ve been retreating into old romantic comedies, my own naïve poetry, and nostalgic playlists to see if I could maybe renew my sense of wonder.
A decade ago I felt like I could do anything, be anyone. And now I’m here, in DC, actually being someone. I’m arguably much more successful than anyone in elementary, middle or high school expected me to be, but I don’t feel like I can be or do anything I want anymore.
Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like to be untethered—to leave this marble city behind and find something new. It scares me how easy I think it would be to leave this all. I won’t, because I am not rash enough. But I do fantasize about lying in a field under the Tuscan sun or standing on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover. Perhaps that is the artist in me, the one I stifled in order to be who I am now.
Even as I type this, I am itching at my desk to be anywhere but my office. Maybe I should have studied painting or creative writing. The reason I didn’t is because everyone told me I would have no future in it. Maybe they were wrong, and I was wrong to believe them. I will never know. But that nostalgic artist in me is at war with the politically ambitious outer layer that I wear every day.
This is not to discredit my amazing life, which is nothing shy of magnificent. I just wonder if I could have a different, equally splendid life doing something else, somewhere else.
I chalk it up to it being springtime. Like the calm, seasonal warmth that has settled briefly over the city, so too has my nostalgia over me. It will pass, as all things do, and my history will stay where it belongs, behind me.
Nostalgia makes you want to go back, but you can’t spell it without “no.” And no, you can never go back to the way things once were.
— Sarah