Nostalgia...

I was here one day...

Nostalgia definition (www.dictionary.com):  a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.


While I am more and more focused on being in the moment I periodically revert to the great memories of the past.  It's up for debate whether the past was so wonderful as my mind has decided to record it but it certainly makes for nice daydreaming sometimes. Although it also brings a little bit of heartache.

I remember my grandparents when they were relatively young, traveling around the world with my parents and bringing me unusual presents.  I remember how - when my parents were in Europe and we were enrolled in a boarding school - they used to take all four of us kids to the movies to see one movie after the other at a special movie theater.   I remember each one of the delicious snacks they bought us between movies.

There are other cherished memories that didn't happen years ago, maybe some of them took place just last year.  Whether it's a memory a month ago of my two-year old niece laughing heartily at her own antics once she viewed herself in a video I took of her or a memorable dinner last night with some friends, drinking wine and looking from the terrace at the shimmer the full moon created on the ocean,  these memories are as vivid to me as some memories in the more distant past.

I have included a picture of steps in this post.  It is a picture of steps my feet made in the snow at a park in front of my building last year.  They symbolize a beautiful memory that even if the snow did melt and erased my steps, that memory is forever ingrained in my heart and soul.  I had many happy seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months in that park...I have had many happy seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months since then in many places as well.  Yet the memory of my park still reigns supreme.

I went to dinner with one of my best friends tonight.  Somehow our conversation turned to our parents. My parents died within a span of two years a few years ago.  To me, they were the perfect parents and that doesn't mean that they were perfect.  I would give anything to be able to drive up to their house once again, have dinner with them, talk to them, laugh with them...but fortunately I have plenty of memories to keep them alive in my heart.

Our ability to remember these memories whether they happened several years ago or just last night is a tremendous gift.  It's as if our mind can help us be back at that moment to relive and relish the happiness of feeling good no matter when or where it was.  I contend that if one truly lives in the moment it doesn't matter when that moment took place, it will forever be etched in our minds (barring any disease to prevent that from happening). Yes, there is a degree of pain associated with it but it is probably equal to the degree of pleasure and happiness to remembering we actually lived it.

So that's what I constantly attempt to do, live in the moment fully.  My motivation is to just enjoy myself at that moment in time without letting anything interfere with it.  It also helps my desire to then  relive it again and again although this second dynamic happens automatically.  I don't think, "let me live fully so that I then remember it".  It's more about living fully because today is all I have.  Remembering about it later is just a bonus.

We only have today.  We only have this instant.  Now.  We better make those steps in the snow now.  Live, live, live...