That word, Nostalgia. It used to signal comfort food of the soul for me personally. Today, that word, Nostalgia, ensures depression, and longing for a home I can never return to. The word, nostalgia, has become a neurosis, triggered by things I love and used for escape from the world. My brain's inability to comprehend time on such a large scale, such as decades that have passed in what felt like years, has provided me with an unwelcome loneliness.
We used to have warm, yellow street lamps, and now we have these cold, lifeless, sterile white LED street lamps on every corner. The differences are stark, and we have lost something with the "upgrade" to cost-effective LEDs. I am having difficulties describing how awful the change has been. The feeling of home, once again, was in the warmth of those old sodium vapor lamps and now our neighborhoods are lit with hospital lights. These bright lights cut straight through to my soul while on my evening summer walks. The Dundalk I grew up in would have this soothing amber glow everywhere, and now it's all gone. I noticed it just before the Key Bridge collapsed. Events conspired to change the world in unimaginable ways, one who is prone to conspiracy theories could surmise...
I feel alone, and without home, or at least the home I grew up in. I've now lived in my home with my girlfriend longer than in the home of my parents in Dundalk. But in my childhood home I went from child to adult and experienced many things for the first time. I understand that time was slower at that age because experiences were new to my still-forming brain. Now at 47 I've gone through many of those motions so many times today that it just flies by...so to speak. And my daily inability to move on and let go from the past is causing me serious stress. TV shows, movies, music, etc., it all sends me in a tizzy where I freak out at the reality that I can never, ever, visit that time again. What was once my time and perspective in the moment is practically fantasy today. And each day memories get fuzzier, while others disappear altogether.
I am grateful to be alive. There can be no doubt about that. I pray to give thanks each and every day that I am here to see another sunrise, eat another burger, experience another intimacy with T. So, each day I try to find a way to live with the past as memory and live each and every day to my fullest capacity. Changes in society seem to be the biggest obstacle to living today for me. The world I grew up in is quickly disappearing in all but memory and media, and I just cannot come to grips with this.
Our American society is so fractured today, and it will never be whole again, almost ensuring some states secede eventually from the union, or worse. The American Experience is Left vs Right. I remember a time when we were all American, and not Trump supporters (some get called Nazis) vs Looney Lefties. I don't see how this country ever heals. "United We Stand, Divided We Fall..." I don't won't to start talking about my personal political leanings on here, God forbid, but with so many people coming into this country illegally, who do Not want to assimilate into our culture, this Republic cannot stand. It's only a matter of time now. I'm completely For legal immigration. I'm all for those folks who come here, legally, become citizens and live the American Way. Great, now I'm injecting personal opinions on here. This is supposed to be just about my adventures in nostalgia, damnit!
And so I think of these things, all the time, and I cannot help but fear for my country. For my family living in this country, and how things used to be divine here, in the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s. And now the dystopian hellscape encroached daily into our lives. Look at NYC. They elected, willingly, an open communist. God in heaven, all really is lost...
The irony in this is that when I was younger boy, I was a huge vampire fan. Well for most of my life, really, but as a young boy I wanted to actually be a vampire. To be immortal, I thought, would be the coolest thing imaginable. To see empires rise and fall, living decades and centuries as everyone around you were born, lived, died, seemed to be such an irresistible idea. Today that lifestyle seems utterly horrifying. It is the exact opposite I feel about growing old today. But I just digress now...
These thoughts and fears weigh heavily on my head. Is there no wonder that I yearn to return to a better time? To a time when this country was really, really good. When life in America was heaven on Earth. Since the pandemic, the death of a once very close friend, the collapse of our town's bridge, and the razing of our neighborhood's mall, along with dozens of restaurants and other local businesses, has struck me with a depression that I'm not entirely sure won't be the end of me...
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