Words: Savannah Meriwether (she/her)
The arches will bridge together moment after moment until one day, I’ll look around me and realise I’ve constructed a life of memories that shine with all the colours of a stained glass tryptic, and I’ll have spent none of it wishing I was anywhere but here and now.
I am chronically (read: detrimentally) wistful. I’ve never written a poem that wasn’t about the past, or lasted longer than a month without revisiting a book or film that I was addicted to as a child. A lot of it stems from my fear of the future. My inability (read: refusal) to look forward means that the only way to escape the present is by looking at the past. Interestingly, I find I’m more nostalgic for the rare good moments of my teenage years than any specific time period of my early childhood. Maybe the beautiful moments of being 17 are better because they are surrounded by memories I desperately want to forget. Still, it’s more likely that the glossy sheen of film photography covers the reality of the nights I want to go back to – they’re more magical now than they ever were as I was experiencing them. In saying that, I don’t find it unhealthy to have a distorted memory of the past. Treating memories like collectible souvenirs that you pick up on bad days isn’t a bad thing, but I’ve noticed that I use the past as a crutch to avoid existing in the present. Nostalgia is all about going back to something, but what if, instead of curling up in the comfort of days gone by, we started building lives in the present that feel as good as our memories do?
In most posts about nostalgia, the images or videos have a grainy, dream-like quality to them, as if they were taken on a 2000s camcorder, even if the photos in question were captured on an iPhone 17. I’m guilty of it myself; overlaying Instagram stories with the Rio de Janeiro filter and a Screamo song from 2003 so I can pretend it isn’t 2026, and that the world hasn’t gone to shit. I still rewatch season 5, episode 7, ‘You Jump, I Jump, Jack’, of Gilmore Girls every time I’m ill, because it makes me feel twelve again, even if I find some of the themes of the show problematic now. Honestly, there is just something horrifyingly crippling about existing wholly in the present. On an all-encompassing scale, I feel like I can never do enough. From creative pursuits to political action, there’s never enough time in the day. The thing is, though, everyone always thinks things are worse than they have ever been before. The world was supposed to end in 2000, but we’re still kicking about. I wonder if the nostalgia I’ve used to get through hard times has actually kept me trapped in it. It’s easy to joke about being stuck in the past, but when memory consumes a majority of your waking moments, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate how positive your reflective nature actually is.
Nostalgia is a salve that prevents people from making active change. If the main problem in your life is that time has passed – Justin Bieber isn’t charting the Hot 100 and Twilight: Eclipse hasn’t just come out – then the issue is out of your hands. It’s about a lack of accountability. Honestly, I’m sick of being apathetic. I don’t want adulthood to be about sacrificing new experiences, starving myself of good times because I’d rather waste away in bed, watching videos of my friends from years ago until my eyes start twitching from fatigue. Things suck? Make some art about it! Go to the club about it! Participate in activism about it! You only want it to be 2016 again because, in 2016, you didn’t have the developed frontal cortex to realise how much shit had hit the fan already.
It’s been a long process, but I’m starting to realise that not everything needs to be tucked away into my pocket like a worry stone. As is often said, ‘There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see them.’ I see them all around me. There will be cathedrals in the cake the next time I celebrate a friend’s birthday. They will be in every interaction with the barista who knew my order by heart after only two visits. The arches will bridge together moment after moment until one day, I’ll look around me and realise I’ve constructed a life of memories that shine with all the colours of a stained glass tryptic, and I’ll have spent none of it wishing I was anywhere but here and now. Building something as complex and effervescent as an entire life needs more fuel than nostalgia. It needs hands that want to build something – hands that are willing to let go of souvenirs and reach instead for the warmth of outstretched fingers: fingers that will grip tenderly and create something with you.
