nostalgia

Microsoft Word tells me that the synonyms for nostalgia are homesickness, reminiscence, wistfulness, longing and melancholy, all moderately dark and looming terms. Homesickness reeks of a sad desperation and feeling of desertion that lingers in the air above the tents of young first timers a long way from home at their first overnight camp. Reminiscence has an old photo feel to it. Peeling around the corners and not quite clear anymore, it carries one gently backwards down the path of life into a land that no longer exists. Wistfulness suggests a more slight, light-hearted backward glance, a gentle longing that can never be fulfilled. Longing suggests an emptiness that, despite its lack of substance, weighs down the carrier. Melancholy. Melancholy is like an abandoned antique room in an abandoned antique house that still smells of the tenants and patiently awaits their return. But nostalgia… nostalgia has a playful undertone. Nostalgia is aware of its futility. It is aware that it is being foolish looking back, but cannot help turning back for one last glance, one more smile, one more memory relived. There is a sense of contentedness in the backward glance that, displayed by other words, is much heavier and painful. No, nostalgia is not a bad thing. It is nostalgia that keeps us both in the present with a mind to the future, but with an assertion of the past, for who are we if we are not a compilation of our past? And what good are those experiences if they are left along the path, deserted and left to rot?

Nostalgia is both important and inevitable, especially in a foreign country among a foreign people while speaking a foreign language. There are little things that I can sit and close my eyes and think about that transport me back home. Lately, as we prepare for the holiday season, I find myself looking back to those holiday moments, the customs that I never realized, the rituals that I never noticed and, even more so, the precious moments with family and friends that I did realize and notice.

I also think of snow. I didn’t think that snow would be on my mind while living on a quasi-tropical island, but I guess it is in my blood. If you really know me, you know how important snow is to me. With the first fall of leaves I turn my eyes forward only to the first fall of snow. My roommate is from Southern California and has only encountered snow and real cold a handful of times. The temperature, though far from the bone chilling cold of New England, has dropped a bit and at times, makes me yearn for the cozy blankets and comforting sweaters of winters past. When I mention that I miss those colder temperatures and warmer clothes, I think my roommate thinks I’m nuts, but you can’t change who you are, and my roots have already been planted in New England.

As I prepare for my first Christmas away from home, I find myself in a nostalgic mood. I don’t find myself lacking, but there are certainly many things in my life that have changed drastically. Life has always been described as a roller coaster, full of ups and downs. Peace Corps is described in the same manner, though perhaps in comparison with the roller coaster of life, this one is a little more dramatic and surprising… the ups a little higher and the downs a little lower. When I find my self on a decline, it is nostalgia that helps bring me back up. All the memories that get stored in our minds, whether intentionally or unintentionally, are always there to remind us of who we are, where we came from and to keep us from getting too far ahead of ourselves. I’ve learned through time that you can’t run away from who you are, and you are foolish to try because the only person you are running from is yourself. (Apparently Peace Corps also makes one introspective…)

With that, I thank you all for the memories, the little smiles, the big laughs and everything we have shared while riding this roller coaster of life.