Nostalgia

Being nostalgic is defined as being characterized by or exhibiting feelings of nostalgia.  Nostalgia is of course defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.  Translation: something good happened once upon a time in your life so when you reminisce about it you get all happy and joyful until you realize you're merely daydreaming and then reality slaps you right across the face and says "wake up friend, that was then and this is now."

So why bring this up?  Well every now and again everyone gets sucked into that "remember when?...." phase with a friend or family member and you start going on about "the good old days" and before you know it you're back over a decade ago laughing and joking around.  Then without warning your shoved into reality by a screaming child or a nagging boss.  

Or maybe you hear an old familiar song on the radio from "your generation" (and it pains me to write that phrase) and suddenly you're flashing back to a romantic encounter with that special someone that you swore you'd always be close with.  The song playing in the background, his arms around you, all the right words flowing from his mouth and right into your ear.  It was meant to be, he was your soul mate.  Flash forward a few years, you are no more than a line in a song that he couldn't care less about and you would love nothing more than to take the ball of your heel and jam it into his "manly" parts with more force than a rocket launching into space. Halfway through the song you realize this and have a sudden urge to not only change the station but to throw the radio through the nearest window, watch it fall to the ground and smash into a million pieces.

I spent a great deal of time going through some old photo's and wondering "what the hell was I thinking?!" on numerous topics.  Everything from clothing, to the lack of hairstyles, to who the hell are those people?! However, I have the same core group of the most amazing friends, and we had some incredible times that I will be forever grateful for.  Those are the memories I will always be happy to look back on.  

Everything that I have done, gone through, been a part of, has made me the person I am today. Whether it's good bad or indifferent, I am who I am, and I am grateful for all my experiences. Some people have definitely come and gone and that's to be expected with life.  But as I sat with my dearest friend on my birthday this year sipping some apple moonshine that she had bought for me after a (very) brief taste test I realized that even though there will be times when that ridiculous nostalgic feeling may creep up and I may wonder why this or that happened the way it did, it doesn't really matter.  I have the best people in my life and I am so lucky to have them share my life experiences with.