Blog #209: Anticipatory Nostalgia
- Kailyn Robert
- Aug 30, 2019
- 2 min read
Is anticipatory nostalgia a thing?
I can be a pretty nostalgic person, but sometimes I don't even feel nostalgic about anything in the past, or about anything specifically at all. Instead, the notion of nostalgia seems to consume me, and I think about how nostalgic I'll be in the future as well.
For example; tonight, I was playing the uke again, and I decided to learn "Castle on the Hill" by Ed Sheeran. That song is essentially nostalgia in music form, but as I played and listened to it, my thoughts went to the future instead of the past. Rather than reminisce on what's already been, I thought about myself reminiscing in the future on what is yet to come.
One reason for this could be the "feels" associated with starting senior year. As crazy as it's all going to be, I also know this will be a time I look back on a lot, for various reasons. I don't know what's to come, but I know one day I'll probably be a bit nostalgic about it. Knowing that makes me feel nostalgic now.
Along with this, the general passage of time as I get older makes me nostalgic about when I was young and life was simple, but knowing that time will only go faster and life will just become more complex in the future makes me nostalgic, in a way, for where I am now. I'm anticipating my nostalgia.
I don't know, maybe this is weird. It can be kind of sad, but I think in a way it also helps me enjoy the present even more. Sometimes memories are sweeter than the real thing, so occasionally living my present through a future-past lens makes it sweeter as well.
It's like those fleeting moments where you're driving around with your friends at midnight with the windows rolled down, and you're all just screaming the words along to your favorite song playing way too loud, then you catch each others' eyes and look at each other just knowing that that moment is what life is made of, is what you'll remember forever.
I just hope I remember these things forever.
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