nostalgia

nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.

certain music always gives me that nostalgic feeling. The Killers take me back to high school. Weezer ignites those middle school memories. And for elementary school my homeschooled musical selection basically revolved around Twila Paris or Amy Grant.

It is so easy to become nostalgic of wonderful memories and dear times. But I find that nostalgia makes me sad. Its a yearning for the past. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald says, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (which is also on his tombstone). He so often wrote about characters that dealt with the past haunting their present circumstances.

I often let my past define me, like Fitzgerald's characters. I think about what in my past has made me who I am today. While I believe my past has shaped me.. it's beautiful to realize that through Christ I have no need let my past failures define me. And though there will always be a current to battle, I know there will be calm waters eventually.

basically, nostalgia is a way weird feeling. like deja vu. but deja vu is probably weirder.