Nostalgia

I don't like to think about the past. Because it's over and it can't be changed. And because I'm fiercely optimistic, probably delusionally so, that whatever happens next will be better than what went before and life will keep proceeding towards maximum awesomeness. But mostly because thinking about the past just makes me miss everyone I used to know and everyone I wish I'd known sooner. It makes me wish that I was less awkward and more outgoing and better at keeping in touch across time and space.

The thing is, everything ends. To everyone you meet, you will one day have to say goodbye. And you don't know when that day will be. You don't know how much time you will have with them. Except that it won't be enough. It will never be enough time for you to fully convey to them how much they mean to you and how much better you are for having known them.

And I don't really know what to do about that. Other than try to get really strong so I can give everyone those great big bear hugs that lift you off the ground. Because those are the very best kind of hugs.

Maybe those nostalgic moments are reminders to look back with gratitude yet keep moving forward. Maybe that feeling of being simultaneously sad to leave where you've been and excited to move on means that you're one of the lucky ones, that you've found things worth missing. Nothing lasts forever, but some things last a really long time. Maybe this new thing is quite likely to be one of them. And maybe that hope is all you really need.

Lyric of the moment: "But I can't go back. And I don't want to. 'Cause all my mistakes, they brought me to you..." ~The Avett Brothers "All My Mistakes" (I think I am destined to one day live in a commune/bakery/treehouse where I will spend all the days running through the woods and playing euchre and listening to The Avett Brothers station on Pandora.)