Just How Young? - Oct 3 2022

 

Just How Young?

Oct 3 2022

Just how young

does nostalgia start?

At four

does he think fondly back

to that ratty blanket he dragged around?

At ten

reflect on how happy he once was

with toy trucks

playing in the sandbox?

Of course, at that age

the feeling is triumphal;

how grown-up he's become,

the stuff of childhood

left behind.

Now, it's enveloped in a golden haze

and tinged with wistful longing;

the past

an Arcadian place

that never really existed.

The Latin roots of the word

are a combination of home and pain;

the home you remember

the pain of leaving it.

So not so much bittersweet

as homesick.

Even at four,

back when time moved slowly

life was full

and a year eternal.

So much

to look back on

I shouldn't have been surprised

he had such grown-up feelings.

And now

when life is drudgery

and nothing much happens

and time goes fast;

when you haven't changed in years

all your memories are old

and the good have subsumed the bad,

you find yourself lost

in the golden glow of nostalgia.

Except now, unlike the child of 4

the past is mostly done

your future has shrunk

and nostalgia seems more painful

than you remember it was.