The Dangers of Nostalgia

No sepia-toned montage, no matter how wonderful, can light the way forward

Late in my first marriage, the new Ghostbusters movie came out.

My former husband and I talked about this.  For days.  Weeks.  Months.  The new movie had been out for a year, then two years, and we were still talking about it.  Still worrying that it had been an insult to our childhood memories.  Still bemoaning the fact that with Harold Ramis’ passing, there would be no re-remake to put the universe back as it should be.  We debated who was to blame.  We debated whether anything could still be done to right this colossal wrong.  We debated what this meant for our childhood memories, and future generations, and the state of the world as a whole.  

Gangs were killing people left and right 50 miles away.  

Tesla came out with the Model 3.

People were getting married.  Having kids.  Getting promoted.  Moving.

The world was still turning.  Time was still passing.  Matters of actual societal importance—good and bad—were still occurring.  And yet, in many ways, our lives were stalled right there.  

Discussing the remake of a kids’ movie from 1984.

He was the one who was particularly passionate about this, but I could empathize.  

Talks of a Mighty Ducks reboot were already in the pipeline, and that was the franchise that had defined my childhood.  The last thing I wanted to see was somebody making a mockery of the legacy.  After all, I was a latchkey kid with divorced parents—I’d spent way more of my childhood watching Gordon Bombay than I had my own mom and dad.  

…

At the time, I didn’t think much about all of this.  

It didn’t really cross my mind that it was a little odd for two grown adults to spend years bemoaning a crappy movie remake.  I just figured that was what people do—after all, what else were we going to talk about?

And, I wasn’t entirely wrong.

We both worked long hours.  Our friends worked long hours.  We didn’t tend to see eye-to-eye politically, and there was no joy to be found in debating.  He didn’t care for traveling.  I didn’t care for hearing about construction after spending all day dealing with construction.  We’d never had just a ton in common, and as the years passed, we’d only grown further apart.

Aside from going to Dillard’s once or twice a month and debating whether to buy a bigger house, we didn’t exactly have a lot of shared interests. 

And so, we just kept rehashing movies from thirty years prior.  

There was nothing else to do.  Nothing else to discuss.  We had already disinvested enough from the relationship that there were no new memories to make.  We had already disinvested enough that talking about the future was an amorphous concept at best; a reminder of something that we didn’t have at worst.  

Our present didn’t give us much to talk about, and the concept of a future was getting shakier by the hour.  

The past was all that we had left; nostalgia and a stockpile of incandescent lightbulbs the only things remaining to give a warm glow to the barren wilderness of a failing marriage.

…

It was only after the fact that I realized what an issue this was.

It was only after the fact that I realized nostalgia can only look back.  That it can never light the way forward.  That time spent living in the past is inherently time not spent working to improve the present or future.   

…

In 2020, the world found itself in the same position that my former husband and I had already been in for several years.

Covid hysteria arrived.  Everything shut down.  The government told everybody that if they left their houses, they would die.  

Whether a person believed the government’s hysterics or not didn’t really matter; with everything shut down, it became hard to make new memories.  It became almost impossible to see new places or meet new people. The best one could do was perhaps see a few of the people they already knew.  Perhaps visit a hollowed-out version of the places he or she had already been a thousand times before.  

The present became lifeless; the future unclear. 

And, like the Ghostbusters discussion a few years earlier, this continued.  On, and on, and on.  Some places reopened.  Some people got to return to their old lives.  But for many people, in many places, the world hung in suspended animation for a very long time.  Sometimes, this was out of fear of the virus, or because of the virus itself.  Sometimes this was because of ongoing government restrictions.  And sometimes this was because the original lockdowns had knocked life off course in a way that couldn’t easily be repaired.  But whatever the cause, the end result was the same: Life’s forward march became stalled.  

The months and years passed, more and more time without any real new memories or experiences to speak of; certainly not many that anyone would want to remember.   

With this came more and more nostalgia.

In the early days, the nostalgia was sepia-toned.  It looked like the nostalgia Americans think of when they hear the word—warm, happy, and comforting.  

People “showed their support” for struggling teenagers by posting pictures of their own glory days.  People filled out lists naming their favorite childhood movies, and their best friends from high school, and things they missed about their hometown.  People binge watched Disney+ and combed Poshmark for the old outfits they remembered.  People shared memes about driving around with friends, and passing out in corn fields.  

Perhaps the wrong things were being celebrated, but it was still a fundamentally pleasant nostalgia.  It reminded people of being together.  It reminded people of being loved.  It reminded people of feeling safe. Even the celebrations of teenage irresponsibility came from a place of longing for that sense of safety; of longing for the idea that even if a person doesn’t do every little thing perfectly, that things will probably be alright. That the sun will still come up tomorrow, even if the night was pretty stupid.

But soon, as the slog continued and divisions grew, nostalgia took a new turn.

The sepia hues faded as people remembered that the past hadn’t always been so great. 

Faced with a bleak present, uncertain future, and lots of time to sit alone and think, people began to comb the past for sources of blame.  

Slights that had been forgiven twenty years earlier saw their cases reopened; an unfair JV soccer tryout in 1997 as good of an explanation as any for the thousand things that had gone wrong since.  The statute of limitations on one’s personal narrative flew out the window; sorority rush, middle school cafeteria drama, and spelling tests from second grade all ripe for re-litigation.  

Some people did this more than others, but I think most people fell victim to this at times.  I know that I certainly did.  

After all, before, new things had been happening.  The statute of limitations on arguments from 2002 still made sense, because the world was fundamentally moving forward.  I had other things to think about.  Other things to look forward to.  

There was no reason to worry about whether somebody “stole” my role in the junior high class play, because I was a normal adult, with normal adult concerns.  I had meetings to lead.  I finally had the tiny, bored audience I’d been so deprived of in eighth grade. It might have taken a while for my ship to come in, but now all of those aging middle-managers were yawning because of me. I had current office politics to get riled up over.  I had current petty arguments to replay in my head.   

But…then I was downsized.  I found a new job pretty quickly, but it was a back office position, without the audience I was used to in sales.  My husband of the time and I got divorced, and I left the stable but dull job.  I moved away.  I left the house I had spent years decorating.  I left my routine.  I left a place that had largely re-opened for a city that was still telling everybody to stay at home. 

Without a clear present or future, the question of “Why am I sometimes unhappy?” suddenly turned into a murder investigation.  

The issue was no longer that I had been deprived of something I wanted in junior high; the issue was that all of my dreams in life were dead, and that somebody had killed them.  

If one witness was cleared, that simply meant it was time to look into another.  After all, there was nothing else to do.  There was no obvious path forward.  I had to do anything to get justice for the pile of dead aspirations I was stuck staring at all day.  

And, from what I can tell, this was very, very normal.

Once, my life had been filled with endless text chains discussing things my friends and I thought we might buy. Now, my texts and social media looked like the world’s shittiest procedural drama.  It became Law and Order, SUV as people tried to figure out how to apportion blame for life’s misery between politicians, annoying neighbors, and the kid who stole the really cool toy from the classroom treasure chest back in kindergarten. No issue was too minor, or too far in the past to be dissected—a stolen Barbie in preschool and the teacher’s bored response were as good of an explanation as any for all that had gone wrong since.  

Before, most people had to be ten or fifteen drinks in to start sobbing about the unfairness of a missed extra-credit point in tenth grade.  

By 2021, that was just a thing a person did.  With no clear future goals to work towards, there were a lot of hours to spend drawing lines between that one extra credit point, the eventual C in the class, ending up at one’s safety school, and the soul-crushing mediocrity that had followed.  

…

Here, as we approach the end of the year of our Lord 2022, the same old movie franchises are being rebooted for the 1,000th time.  

Out in the suburbs, the retooled Ford Bronco is the aspirational but realistic purchase, only $40k standing between tired loan officers and a world that still makes sense. A world where the hairlines never recede, and where the head cheerleader is still looking for a date to homecoming.  

At the mall, racks are filled with every item I begged my parents for in 1998; Polo Bear sweaters and primary-colored Tommy Hilfiger puffer coats making up the bulk of the department store merchandise. The cool kids of the fashion world are wearing the same Asics Gel Kayanos I wore in high school gym class. The fast fashion mainstays are once again specializing in the teeny tiny shirts and oh-so-impractical platforms that were too frivolous for sensible parents to spend Famous-Barr money on, but that moms would cave to so long as the price tag came in under $20. It’s an embarrassment of riches for the nostalgic; everything a person wanted as a kid now just a click away.

But as I look out at this sea of my childhood memories, I no longer feel the delight I might have five years ago.  

Five years ago, a store full of the things I lusted after in fourth grade would have made me feel seen; a reminder that as I grow older and more invisible, I’m still valued as a consumer.  A reminder that I’m not alone in my memories.  That those memories are real. 

That I’m still real, along with all of the years that shaped my childhood and adolescence.     

Now?  Now I also see the dangers that lie with it.  I find myself more aware than ever of the pitfalls of nostalgia.  Of all of the problems that come with only looking backwards.

It’s not that remembering and celebrating the past is bad.  Not at all. 

I lost both of my grandmothers to Alzheimers in the span of a year and a half.  It was crushing.  I’ve never had such a deep respect for the importance of one’s memories—to see my grandmother no longer able to remember that she was in her own dining room was the kind of experience that has no silver lining.  My mother was always the pro at spinning the horrible things of life into something more palatable.  Into something that wouldn’t make others uncomfortable.  But there was no spinning that.  It was only horrible and heartbreaking.  I’ve never had such a deep respect for my own memories.    

I’ve also never had such a deep respect for the fact that memories are exactly that—memories.  

No Polo Bear sweater is going to bring either grandmother back.  It doesn’t matter what Macy’s stocks; I’m still not going to get to pile in the back of a Camry with my cousins for Grandma to take us all Christmas shopping.  There is nothing Ralph Lauren can make, nothing I can swipe my AmEx for to get those moments back.

And, if I’m being completely honest, I probably don’t want those moments back, anyway.  

The moments of Christmas shopping with Grandma? Yeah, of course I want those back.  I will happily spend 10x whatever she spent that day to make it happen.  I’ll max out my credit cards and buy Grandma everything in the damn mall if it means the family can have her back for another Christmas.  If the family can have her back like she was in 1998.

But there’s also a lot of footage being left on the cutting room floor. 

Realistically, that very same day, my parents and I probably yelled at one another over something that was too insignificant to remember the next week.  My cousins and I were probably punching one another the whole way to the mall, and it might have been good-natured, but it also might have been out of a genuine desire to sock the shit out of one another.  I was probably pissed that we were going to the crappy Cape mall. I was probably pissed that I wasn’t being given a larger Christmas budget.  I was probably already nostalgic for the Christmases of early childhood, and waking up to see the 20 ft. pile of toys from Santa.  And that’s not even touching on the fact that sunny November Saturdays are not the entirety of life; that there were plenty of spelling tests, essays, fights with friends, and other assorted dramas playing out in the background. That Christmas shopping with Grandma was already a red letter day, sandwiched between lots of other days that did not make the highlight reel.      

Nostalgia, after all, is the “based on a true story” Hollywood adaptation of real life.  

It’s a montage based on a bunch of exaggerated highlights and a couple of things that probably didn’t actually happen, but that would have been cool if they did. It’s the chance to cast Margot Robbie as oneself, while casting a 600 lb. man on a motorized scooter as the popular mean girl. 

Nostalgia is many things, but an accurate look into the past it is not.  

Moreover, as tempting as it is to watch that Hollywood adaptation on repeat all day, that doesn’t do anything to improve the present.  It doesn’t do anything to build a better future. It can’t light the way forward.  It won’t give a person new memories, or contribute to tomorrow’s highlight reel. It can only play the old video over and over again.  And with time, the film deteriorates.    

The memories get played too many times.  The old memories get too worn.  The people, places, and things featured all change.  The buildings get torn down, the stores close, Grandma dies, and the Camry goes to the junkyard.  Even Margot Robbie herself, star of that Hollywood adaptation, will eventually get old and wrinkled.

If life is spent in the past, once this happens, there’s nothing left. 

There can be no new memories.  No new hopes and dreams.  A life spent in the past is one that ends as soon as the old film reel disintegrates. 

The only true way forward is to invest in the present.  To enjoy Christmas shopping with the people who are still around.  To focus on them, and not the petty drama with a next door neighbor, or the buzzing of cell phones, or the pile of laundry still waiting at home.   

This is what allows new memories to be made.  This is what gives tomorrow its highlight reel.  This is what lights the way forward.