For some reason, this song has seemed very relevant recently. I've been listening (read: singing along pretending I'm a Broadway star) to it on repeat.
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I've been searching for something in my past, a feeling, a time, a state of mind. Yet, as we all know, we are possessed by the past yet can never truly experience it in the same way. I've been exploring this longing to go back in time. Why it is that I feel it, what the appeal is, and why, though I know it will never be the same, I have this constant desire to go back to the "good ol' days."
The first part of this is easy. I feel a desire to go back in time for two reasons. One is that I am struggling with myself right now and that entails a lot of unknown. As an individual who particularly desires control, the past is appealing because I know the end result and there is no uncertainty. The other reason I desire the past is because it seems easier compared to the present because I've already been through it. What I so often forget, however, is how hard the past felt when it was the present. It often hurt and was accompanied by all of the same fears and doubts and questions that I possess right now. So, in actuality, the past isn't nearly as present as I think it is because I overlook the parts I don't want to see. It's so easy to forget the difficult or push it aside when I think what I am currently feeling is worse. So I forget that part and the past seems easy.
Regardless, there is this incessant desire within me to go back. Despite my realization that it's not as positive as I may recall and the physical impossibility (at least to my knowledge), I still yearn for the past. The obvious reason for this longing is simple: happiness. As a human, I crave happiness each and every day. Those times when I'm not happy, I often look to my past to remember times when I was happy to either get me through the day or perhaps help me to change my behavior so I can attempt to replicate those happy feelings. The more complex part of this is the role my memory plays. Memory is a very interesting thing. I've discussed and read at length on the topic. It's much less reliable than we tend to believe and is very impressionable. When we recall a memory, it physically changes the memory. So, if I recall a memory incorrectly, my brain changes the memory. When this happens over and over, this new, fabricated memory is reinforced and becomes the memory. The original story may be completely gone.
For some reason, I often think of a cross country party we had at McGregor Lake in high school when I'm having a rough time. It was an excellent day. Burgers and food and swimming and fun! What's not to love? What's not to desire when I'm having a bad day? If I think further on it, I remember that I was very uncomfortable that day. I felt isolated from my team and alone in a crowd. Not a very fun feeling. But, when I'm having a bad day, I don't want to remember that part. And, were I to let it, I could get rid of the real memory altogether and change the story. Maybe not get rid of it entirely, but displace so it is much more difficult to access than the "happy" memory.
So I'm having a tough day and I remember this happy time on the lake and I want to go back. But what would that really do for me? Do I really want to be on that lake, with those people, having that experience again? With any of these longings for the past, the immediate answer is yes. Some memories are more convoluted because I truly cannot see any negatives, and perhaps there were none for some of them. But still, do I really want to go back? Do I really want to go back to being six and running through corn fields? As appealing as it is in the moment, I don't think I really do.
I believe that harnessing these experiences and desiring to relive them are a way of holding on to hope and trying to rekindle those positive feelings in my current state. I know that I can't go back to the past, but I can emotionally bring the past to my present. And that doesn't always work, so that's where the hope comes in. If I can remember a happy time when I'm sad, even if it seems to great a challenge to change my mood, at least I'm able to remember and desire that I reach a similar place again. And it's those little moments that keep me going, though it may not always feel that way at the time. At the end of the day, it's all about hope.
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