Nostalgia

Today I was asked to define the word nostalgia. My friend, scrolling through notes for an anthropology class, glancing up quickly to say, "Hey, you like words. What does this mean?" Our common room, flooded with sunshine, textbooks and laptops scattered everywhere, white pages edged with gold. We made iced coffee and sat on the floor, backs pressed against the glass, hot to the touch from the first sunny day in months. Studying for the last exams of my first year of university with the people who have been my neighbours for the past eight months, brows furrowed in concentration only to break out into laughter a moment later.

This, my friend. It's moments like this that breed nostalgia.

I am forever looking backwards. Days like today, hot and lazy afternoons that spill into evenings. Books open, preparing for the final days of something that feels like it's only just beginning. Stress, fear, panic but an overwhelming sense of belonging. Today was sepia toned and bittersweet. In just over a week I'll be back home, miles away from these beautiful people and Sunday afternoons like this one.

Even as I sat there, pouring over notes for a history exam in the morning, I could feel myself remembering. I compressed today into a glimmer of laughter and clinking glasses and shining light and tucked it away in my mind for safe keeping. Months from now, I'll look back and remember today and be filled with light and joy and missing these moments something awful. When something so good happens, I stop experiencing life and start planning ahead to a moment when it will inevitably end.

I am a creature of nostalgia.

My mind is like a catalog of days and names and whispers. My first year of university is almost over and I can already imagine myself, decades from now, pressing this memory fast against my heart. Time passes so quickly and so not at all.

It's been a tough eight months. It's been eight months of constantly questioning: Who are you? What are you doing? Are you making the right decision?

I don't know I don't know I don't

But soon, so soon I can fit it in the palm of my hand, everything will change. The answers will catch the light and float away, like dust in a sunbeam. I am forever remembering, I am forever looking forward to looking back.

Nostalgia seeps in like light through half-closed blinds. I just hope that the future is full of Sunday afternoons like this one.