Nostalgia

Nostalgia is highly over rated, in my opinion.  Few things are as good, or bad as memory likes to make them out to be and if they are?  That is sad too, because the past is gone.

I don't like to fixate on music from the past unless it is so far past it precedes me.  It makes me sad to hear music I remember, because everything changes.  People who were dear then are no longer around, or they are still around and one of us has failed to thrive.

Perhaps it is a romantic's distaste for reality, or perhaps it is a realist's distaste for what no longer is.  It seems to me that most people holding on to the past are unhappy with the present, which of course means they will be unhappy in the future too! 

It is relatively easy to hang onto an idea if you can alter that idea to be what you want, or wanted.  But in the end it is still an idea and not the robust give and take, love, fear and excitement of today.  It is a memory, a good place for stories to begin, a jumping off place for now.

Most of the stories I hear are so heavily embellished they are indistinguishable from fantasy.  If they were true, the people telling them would not be doing the things they do now.

That is not nostalgia.  It is imagination!  Celebrate that and call it what it is!  Rewriting the past might be a very empowering thing to do.