Nostalgia

It’s wondrous how certain experiences can trigger a memory that transports us back to an earlier time. It could be an old song. It could be the sight of somebody who resembles an old friend. It could be the scent of a fragrance or a musty odor.

For me, it’s all of these, and also about a place. Two places, actually.

I was raised in South Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I lived there since before I have memories and didn’t move until I was 17. Then I moved to Clinton, Mississippi. After living with my parents for a year, I moved into the dorm at Mississippi College, also located in Clinton.

So my entire childhood until the age of 22 was spent in one of two places. Virtually all of my childhood and adolescent memories are set either in South Euclid or on the campus of MC.

I was in Ohio recently and decided to visit South Euclid. Although I didn’t write letters to anyone in Ohio, the trip was very much in the spirit of this Six Months project.

This was only my third trip to South Euclid since I left there 35 years ago. As I’ve written before, I didn’t feel like I was leaving any friends when I moved from there. I’ve never spoken to anybody in South Euclid since I left. I don’t have so much as a Facebook friend from there.

So I got to look at buildings, streets, and houses. I saw my childhood home again. I was surprised to see how small it is. I get the sense it could fit completely inside the house I live in now. Because it was what I knew, the size of the house seemed very normal to me. Everybody in the neighborhood was lower-middle class. Or maybe just 1960s middle class.

I don’t know how nostalgia feels to most people, but for me it feels like an empty, painful yearning. Part of the problem is that there’s nobody to see in South Euclid. I have the same issue when I visit MC. I don’t usually visit MC while classes are in session, so the campus is typically empty. It feels cold and soulless, like a cemetery, with brick buildings standing like tombstones.

The emptiness brings back the loneliness of my childhood, the lack of friends and poor socialization. Although I finally found a group of guy friends at MC, my poor experiences with girls—and lack of experiences—reinforced my own belief that I was defective and unlovable. I wouldn’t be able to fully shake this belief until I was in my forties.

When I visit South Euclid or MC, I inevitably feel regret. I want to go back and have a do-over. I fantasize that I can be reincarnated with all my existing memories and social skills and be placed back into my own past. Then I remember what it was like to be a teen and wonder whether that’s what I want after all.

I think what I’m describing here is trauma and its effects. I never considered myself to be a victim of trauma. After all, I had a good, intact family. I wasn’t abused. My parents provided for my every need except for my emotional needs.

But psychologists are now expanding the definition of trauma. We don’t have to suffer a big, momentous tragedy or unspeakable abuse to suffer the effects of trauma. Small suffering over a very long period can produce the same symptoms. And I was socially isolated for my entire childhood.

But… this trip was a little different. I didn’t experience more than a tiny twisting of the gut I was used to feeling when stepping into my past. I visited the place in the woods off school property where I used to hide during recess so other kids wouldn’t see that I was alone. But I wasn’t transported back into that lonely little boy as if I was reliving the experience.

I credit my Six Months experience with this. I was able to stop going back to the places of my past, and truly experience the people of my past. These experiences are what philosopher Martin Buber calls I-Thou encounters, “a turning toward another with one’s whole being.”

Through this project, I’ve had the excuse I needed to revisit the people of my past, particularly the young women with whom I felt inadequate throughout my painful adolescence. I’ve kept a couple of their letters private due to either their wishes or mine.

I can now see that I wasn’t defective. I was just hurting, self-protective, and self-absorbed (as anyone in chronic pain would be). And others weren’t rejecting me specifically. They were just hurting too, and trying to figure things out as best they could.

I no longer yearn to have a do-over with my childhood, because I am content with my own self-image in the present. Though I still think it would be cool to get to relive parts of my life. Maybe I’d buy stock in Apple.

I am filled with gratitude to the people who gifted me with the healing of my past. And there’s still more people to see!

 

There is a creek behind my childhood home. On the other side of the creek is a narrow strip of woods. I would play in the creek and in the woods almost every day.

As my 57-year-old self was walking down a trail through these woods, I was suddenly transformed into the little boy from a half-century earlier.

But this time it wasn’t painful. I felt free, like children do. I wanted to run, like I used to do so often in those woods.

Unfortunately, my body protested. I would have ended up out-of-breath and sweating, which wasn’t the feeling I was going for. So I just kept walking, and imagining, and being that little boy. And it felt good. I was happy to be him.

Is this what nostalgia is supposed to feel like?