Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a funny thing.  It takes me over at some of the oddest moments.  And the things I become nostalgic about are so varied.  Former girlfriends.  Classes.  Activities from my youth.  Smells.  Turns of phrase.  Sometimes I'm not even sure what I'm nostalgic about.  I just get a feeling like things used to be wonderful, more wonderful than now, and that their wonderfulness is woefully lost.  None of it makes sense to me, and I kick myself for being silly, but nonetheless, the feeling is there.

I think the worst nostalgia is the kind that causes self-doubt.  As I read the marriage notice of a friend of mine, I thought about my own (current lack of a) romantic life, and I found myself remembering back to a relationship I had in college.  I ended that relationship because it got more serious than I was ready for it to be, but I have to wonder, what if I had done things differently?  Would my old friends be reading my marriage notice?  Would I be somehow happier than I am now?  What drastically different course might my life have taken?  Although I think the decision I made at the time was the right one, and what would have inevitably happened one way or another, I know I didn't go about expressing it the right way.  My social sensitivities have never been acclaimed as exquisite, and honestly, my (generally inadvertent) bluntness probably has amounted to meanness on several occasions.  So here I sit, in the grip of a nostalgia I find it difficult to control.  Illogically and without any decisive reason, I want a chance to make a different decision than the one I made, even though I don't think I could change the outcome for any better than it was.  At least maybe in the future I can recognize my own insensitivity and avoid a similar incident.  Maybe.