Looking through old photos creates a swirl of thoughts and feelings. You really can’t appreciate what’s happening when it’s happening. Even in the moments when you’re all in and aware of the specialness of the moment, aware that it won’t last, marking the moment in your memory…even in those moments when you do realize and appreciate…it still slips away. So why do we still let little things inflame us? Why do we still let pettiness come between us? Looking through old pictures makes me appreciate it all even more. It makes me see how good I’ve had it and how well we’ve done (despite the way that we only hold on to our failures). But all the little flare ups and the unappreciated moments…they make me want to cry a little.
Scrolling through photos like this is to revisit this life. It creates a deep hole with a slippery edge. It’s so easy to feel that regret or to feel that sorrow over the moments we didn’t appreciate. Over the moments we made the wrong choice or said the wrong thing or let anger or annoyance take over. This is the dark side of nostalgia, sinking into that hole.
But as I kept scrolling through the past towards the present, it’s just as easy to jump right back out of that hole because of all the great moments. Why do we hold on to the moments we fucked up and the moments we didn’t give our all to? The story I was being told, as I kept scrolling, was a good story. I didn’t even remember 2023 and I’ve told myself a story about how hard 2024 was but when I relived those years, through those photos, I didn’t see it that way.
Once we’ve made it through challenging times or sorrow, we don’t stop to feel good that we made it. Maybe because there’s no clear end to it. One challenge just blends into the next and there’s almost always a challenge or sorrow floating around somewhere in our story. Nostalgia is slippery and it does us no good to live in the past, but to revisit what we’ve already been through, from time to time, gives us a different view and let’s us change the story that we’re telling ourselves. The view we have in the moment is out of context. We’re too full of that moment and having to put our energy into getting through it. When we look back on it, we can see it without that effort. Seeing it when it’s over allows us to see the good that we couldn’t see then and to appreciate it because once we’re on the other side we’ve been able to exhale. We’re no longer holding on so tightly. The work is over.
Looking back like this does create a yin/yang set of competing feelings. This time the good, appreciative feelings outweigh the regrets. But the way we let ourselves get off track and the way we let ourselves miss out on what’s right in front of us still hurts. Looking back let me rewrite the story I was telling myself but it also has me seeing how much more there is to do. It scared me how quickly this year is unfolding and there’s so much farther I want to go. I hope I have enough time to make it there.