What is this sweet longing, this painful longing, a wishing for things from the past, people from the past? NOSTALGIA! And there is reason that the word ends with ALGIA - it is somewhat painful. Maybe the most painful aspect of it, is that when one is as realistic as possible, not only is it impossible to ever "go back", but many times what we are longing for was never quite what we remember, in fact is much more complicated and shadowy than what we remember. For me nostalgia is more a longing for a painful past. And since all the longing in the world is not going to manifest the past in this physical plain, I do find that indulging in longing for my ideal past, my mythical past, is just as honorable a form of neuralgia as any other. However, sometimes to pull myself out of that longing I have to replay a cameo of the actual past, and like a sharp slap on the face, it grabs my attention and diverts my thoughts elsewhere. Then, unless I fall into the abyss of "Pissed about the Past", I can move on to an awareness of say, the present!
An example: I miss my mother and think about all of her wonderfulness and canonize her among the remarkable women in my life, and am almost to the point of cries of anguish because I miss her so much. Then I must remember her at age 72, lying on her couch, totally jaundiced from her starring role as an alcoholic. She was remarkable in that on her bad days she got more accomplished than I do on my good days. I don't drink much, but I am supremely lazy.
One of my favorite ploys to have an authentic experience of the past, is to troll for images from the years of my life. I think the Betsey McCall from 1955 is a lovely dose of my birth year I have also included a link to the page where someone has published pages of Betsey's. I remember this feature of McCall's. My family did not subscribe to this magazine, but a neighbor did and I could not wait to find the latest Betsey page. However, I hated to cut, I only liked to look, so I am not sure I was robbed of a passion when it comes to paper dolls. Plus paper dolls would just not keep their clothes on. Remember?
The Empty Nest experience is at least 1/2 nostalgia for me. Today I should go into my fledgling's room and go through more of her "stuff" - which will bring back more memories and so on. But will also get me closer to having a new room to add to my territory of my house. Wish me luck!
Keep happy thoughts and have a very lucky day
