Nostalgia

When is it "too soon" to be nostalgic?

A friend and I were debating this issue over mugs of hot beverages {coffee for her, tea for me} at Panera last week.

Two notes:  first, were you aware that you can do that? Order mugs at Panera and then sit in the restaurant/cafe and just keep refilling yours with the hot beverage of your choice? And second, "debating" might not be the right verb. Probably "discussing" would be more appropriate, because we were not of differing view points.

A very long train of conversation got us to this point...I believe we were discussing Fuller House {which neither of us have watched yet, sorry}. The one statement I recall reading from all the reviews of this Netflix original was this:  if you are seeking a nostalgic view back into your younger days of watching Full House, then the first episode was written especially for you., which ultimately led us to the main topic of the conversation:  we're in our late twenties. Is that too young to be nostalgic?

It would seem Facebook wants us to be nostalgic, what with all the links to BuzzFeed lists. Over the last few months, I have seen many articles with titles such as these:

You Know You Were a 90s Kid if You Remember This!

20 Signs You Went to High School in the Early 2000s!

The Lion King Turns 20--Here's What Else Will Make You Feel Old!

10 Struggles Kids Today Will Never Understand!

I could go on and on, I'm sure. Those of us in the "millenial" generation {at least, I think that's what they're calling us these days} seem obsessed with remembering just how old we are by waxing poetic about the things that have gone the way of the dodo. {By the way, BuzzFeed:  I teach fourth graders...I really don't need you reminding me just how old I am.}

Our generation is funny like that. I mean, I've heard people rant about kids and adolescents wearing Nirvana shirts or whatever--as if those youths are too young to "really understand"--and yet I remember wearing Beatles shirts in high school. Granted, I actually listened to the Beatles, but I was not born in the right era to really understand their cultural significance. And we almost act like because these kids {youths, as Schmidt would call them} didn't have to rewind VHS tapes or wait for their dial-up internet, that their lives aren't/can't be as difficult as ours. That they don't understand "the struggle!"

Well, I'll give it to you there. Watching Arthur and Liberty's Kids and Cyber Chase after school probably had some impact on our lives that made us better people {or at least have a different view of Walter Cronkite than our parents...if you watched Liberty's Kids, you should get that}. But I really don't know that our differing childhoods are what's causing this sudden need to be reminded of all the things we loved as children.

I think, perhaps, it stems from where we are now. Dealing with a never-ending job hunt and crippling student loan debt, facing elections that seem to have no good turnouts for everyone. Watching other parts of the world be torn apart by war and disease and hunger and being powerless to help. I recall my psychology professor talking about a "quarter-life crisis" that many people have--that post-college slump where the shift happens from being a student {which you have been for almost all of your life at that point} to a self-sufficient, functioning member of society. And I think it's understandable to want things to be back the way they used to be...when life was simple and the hardest thing you had to deal with was watching commercials {since you couldn't fast forward through them} and your Giga Pet dying.

So really, some nostalgia is understandable. Let's just not take it overboard, okay? We do live in the present, not the past, and no amount of wishing for the good-old-days when you could pour yourself a bowl of Oreo-O's is going to make your current struggles any less difficult. {Although can we talk for a second about middle schoolers? Why are they not having the same awkward adolescence that we did? With the braces and the acne and the clothes that never fit right? I've got albums full of awful photos that need never see the light of day again....where are theirs, huh?}

~Stay Gold!