It’s funny to think about the things that I get nostalgic for.
Nostalgia mostly shows up for me in a moment of yearning, a moment in which I am feeling an unsettledness that thinks it can be alleviated by the experience of a particular feeling. The longing for this feeling then sends my mind on a search for memories associated with that feeling, memories that remind me that, yes, that feeling I am longing for did exist at some point in my life, and is still accessible to me. This mechanism of nostalgia can be very useful in helping me move out of an emotionally stuck place. If I give myself the time and space to explore these memories I can access feelings that are currently blocked and find myself having an emotional release that was otherwise inaccessible. The challenge with nostalgia is getting stuck in those memories without having the time and space for an emotional release, because then the old memories can carry with them messages of shame and blame and send me into a deeper spiral of despair.
Having an awareness of both the positive and negative impacts that slipping into nostalgia can have on me helps me regulate myself when I notice the sensations associated with nostalgia coming up. And having an understanding that a purpose nostalgia can serve is to help me have an emotional release that I am otherwise blocked from having helps me remember to give myself the time and space I need to let the release happen.
It usually starts with feeling agitated, and I usually don’t notice it right away. For example, the agitation that came to a head this afternoon started a few days ago, probably earlier than that. At some point today I noticed that I was trying to find ways to release that agitation. I went swimming. I ate a sandwich that I like. I went to my favorite coffee shop. And none of it was working. The agitation was not going away. Nostalgia had already been showing up without me noticing it. Each choice I had made: swimming, the sandwich, the coffee shop, carried an association with a feeling I was longing to experience. I was yearning for a feeling of settledness, of comfort, of home.
I did not know yet what it was and as I write this am still discovering clues that my unconscious mind had been leaving me throughout the day. I did know that I needed a change of scenery. So I looked at the maps app on my phone, took a deep breath, and tried to feel into the scenery that was calling me. I wanted a little bit of space, I wanted to be somewhere that I could sit in my car, look out upon something beautiful, and just be still in myself.
I found a place, plugged it into my phone, got in my car and started driving. As I arrived at this parking lot at the base of the the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, with the palisades on my right, shooting up from the banks of the great waters in constant motion, which were to my left, and the bridge with views of the city skyline in front of me, I was overcome with emotion and a release that came in the form of a deep exhale and profound relaxation of muscles that had been tight for days, muscles that I didn’t even know were holding me in tension.
For the next four hours I sat in my car, staring out at the great big bridge in front of me, the little red lighthouse across the water at its base, and the massive city beyond it. I have been feeling the energy of these great cliffs behind me and this constantly swirling water at my side. And I have felt a stillness and peace in my body that is often inaccessible. It is the feeling of home that I am often longing for.
This river, this bridge and the city behind it, these cliffs and the towns that lay on their other side, are for me elements of home, but more than home, they are reminders of the consistency that lives inside of change. They are the geographic features that I was born into and raised by. They have been a steady constant for me to return to throughout the journey that has been my life. They hold me in my essence, they know the parts of me that are core to who I am, to who I continue showing up as. They see what will always be true in me, throughout all of the change that I experience out in the world, and all of the transformation I go through in my person, the features of this place know me, see me, and welcome me as I am.
When nostalgia is working for me it helps me remember my essence by returning me to moments in my life that speak to an essential part of who I am, who I have been, and who I am continuing to grow towards being. It is a constant in all of the motion.
It’s funny to think about the things that I get nostalgic for. Today it was a bridge, a lighthouse, and the land and waters that raised me.