The way it was.

Nostalgia

noun

- A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

There's a song by one of my favorite bands, Parachute, called "American Secrets," and in the song there's a line that goes, "I'm still dancing alone with the way it was." Every time I listen to that song I get stuck on that one line. Dancing alone with the way it was. It's the perfect way to describe getting caught up in nostalgia. It's the perfect way to describe how I'm feeling most of the time. It seems lately that I'm almost always "dancing alone with the way it was." And the way it was is sometimes a sad thing to think about because the way things were often feel better than the way things are. And I know it's always said that we see the past as better than it actually was, and I believe that. But I also believe that knowing that doesn't have to take away from the fact that sometimes it really was magical. 

Like hazy summer nights spent with cousins catching lightning bugs and searching the sky for spaceships. Or sleepovers with best friends when we stayed up in the kitchen till 3am eating pizza and mint chip ice cream and talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. Or Fourth of Julys spent with the whole family, watching the sky light up and eating so much homemade ice cream it made our stomachs hurt in a good way. Or weekends at the lake and adventures to places we'd never been before and watching movies at the drive-in where it's so dark that the sky seems overwhelmed with stars. It's those kinds of memories that I find myself dancing alone with, along with a thousand more that are just as beautiful. 

I'm not sure why it's so much harder for me to move on from these things than it is for other people, or maybe they just hide it better. I don't know. All I know is that I constantly find myself looking backward instead of forward when I know it should be the opposite. But when we're younger time seems to move at a slower pace and it feels like you have time for everything. Maybe that's what I miss the most, having time. Having time to waste and being able to take all the time I want with anything. Having the time to make mistakes. These days it feels like time is water slipping through my fingers when all I want is to slow it down or stop it altogether. 

They say these years are supposed to be the best of my life, but all I can think about is what came before and how I wish I had the time to make these years count the way they should. The way it was feels so much easier, so much simpler, so much more comfortable than it is now. Everything felt so certain then, but now nothing does. And while everyone in my life seems to be always looking forward I find myself unable to stop looking back. It isn't that I don't think about the future, I think about it all the time. But when I think about it all I get is this pit in my stomach because the future just means more change, and if you know me you know how terrible I am with change. 

I think about graduating from college in a year and I think about having to move out and I think about trying to find a career and a person and it makes it hard to breathe. Because what if I can't do it all? What if I can't make things happen like I said I would or what if they don't happen the way I want them to? All I can think about is how much I'll miss once I leave. Most people my age can't wait to move out and get their own place, but it makes me want to cry a little sometimes. This room has been my home for the past fourteen or so years. These people have been my home for my entire life. How am I supposed to just leave? It's the quiet nights at home sitting in the kitchen with my family and laughing at stupid jokes that I cherish most and if I leave I'll miss that. I'll miss everything, and if there's anything that I fear most in life it's missing things. Sure I'll be there for the big important things, but it's the little things that are most important to me. I'm not sure how to get over that. 

Maybe the problem is that I'm too comfortable where I am, but in reality I don't think it's comfort that's keeping me. I think it's fear that I'll never have something this good again. And in a few years what I have now will become the new "way it was" and that's a bit terrifying. But as many people will tell me, that's just the way life is. It's constantly changing and it's constantly surprising you, sometimes in good ways and sometimes not. So all I can really do is take everything as it comes and live my life and read my books and write my words and hope for the best. That's what I've always done and maybe that's one thing that will never change. That's the way it is.

Love & Chaos,
Sam