I hate to admit this in such a public forum, but usually in my "American Society and Popular Culture" class, the only time I take really good notes is when my professor references the show "Friends" to highlight his point. I mean, who doesn't love how "The One with the Apothecary Table" highlights how we live in a culture where nothing is original anymore, as exemplified through Ross, Rachel and eventually Phoebe's love of Pottery Barn? But this past week, my professor caught my attention when he began discussing nostalgia and how its meaning has changed throughout time. It used to refer explicitly to homesickness, he explained, but now it refers to a "timesickness" which is inherently distorted as we look back to a simpler time. I tuned in to this particular part of his lecture because I've been interested in the feeling of nostalgia ever since I read a poem about it in my seventh grade English class. Even though my professor quickly changed subjects in his lecture, I have been thinking about nostalgia ever since.
I consider myself a very sentimental person. I love looking at the huge box of old family photos my mom has, and when my basement at home flooded earlier this semester, before I even asked her what it was like to bail the eight inches of water out of my basement, I inquired about that seemingly endless collection of family memories. Thankfully great minds think alike and it was the first thing she relocated to higher ground. During Fall Break, my sister Jennifer and I went through those photos for hours on end with my mom and grandma, laughing the entire time about Jennifer's and my very 90s matching outfits - a look completed with oversized coordinating hair bows, the very voluminous hairstyle my mom was rocking and the fact that my dad still had dark hair. As we were looking through these photos, I began feeling increasingly nostalgic. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to return to those days in Durham and Greensboro when my dad made me waffles every Saturday morning and my mom did "do-a-dots" and cartwheels with me all afternoon. I wanted to go back to the days when my biggest concern was if Santa was going to get my Christmas list on time and homework could be done in less time than it took to watch "Family Matters."
As soon as my family's walk down memory lane ended, I went upstairs to my room, opened iTunes and turned on James Morrison's "Once When I Was Little" because the line in the song, "we could build a rocket, fly to the moon, leave Tuesday morning, be back for noon, there wasn't nothing, nothing that we couldn't do, once when I was little," resonated with exactly what I was feeling.
Conveniently enough, that song happens to be on my "nostalgia playlist." It's a playlist I made first year, back when nostalgia was a daily occurrence as I longed for what I then considered my "glory days" of high school. Coming full circle, now I often listen to that playlist when I am nostalgic for first year. Of course the thing about nostalgia is that it romanticizes the past. When I was nostalgic for my childhood during Fall Break, I didn't yearn for my bedtime right after the 7 p.m. episode of "Rugrats" which was on Nickelodeon every night or the fact that the only car I could legally drive was my Beach Patrol Barbie Jeep. When I was nostalgic for high school during first year, I tended to forget how my alarm clock used to go off at the ungodly hour of 6:15 a.m. and that I actually had class on Fridays. In a way, remembering only the best part of the past is a great thing, because those are the parts worth remembering and there's no point in weighing down your present self with bad memories of the past. But I also think it's important to avoid remembering the past as better than it was because that makes it harder to enjoy the present.
Instead of getting caught up in the past when I am in a nostalgic mood, I like to use nostalgia as a way to see how far I've come - which is exactly what I did at the Third Year Ring Ceremony this past Friday afternoon. As I walked into John Paul Jones Arena with three of my housemates, I couldn't help but nostalgically think of the first time I ever walked into the arena as a first year. It was during orientation weekend and my entire hall had just trekked all the way from Hereford on foot to hear a presentation about diversity. I was nervous about making friends and finding my place in college. I was worried about how I was going to make it through the next four years - four years at the time seemed like an eternity. Last weekend, things were completely different. I only had to walk a few feet from the car - an added bonus of being an upperclassman - to the arena, and I walked in confidently surrounded by some of my best friends. And as I sat there listening to the different speakers talk about how I only have a little more than three semesters left as an undergraduate, I couldn't believe how fast time has gone by and almost cried because I know the next year and a half is going to go by even faster. Of course, I realize as soon as I step out into the real world, I'll nostalgically romanticize college too. Soon the days of reading more than 300 pages of non-fiction a week and writing papers late into the night in Clemons will be a distant, and probably forgotten, part of my college memories. I just hope when I look down at my right ring finger and nostalgically remember these years, I am just as happy with my life as I am now - and that time slows down a bit.
Katie's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at k.urban@cavalierdaily.com.
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