Last update: May 05, 2016
The feeling of nostalgia is so common that sometimes we have the unconscious idea that it must be right there, as something intrinsic to our being. Precisely for this reason, everyone can identify with it: we live carrying the nostalgia for something on our shoulders, we walk together, we dance with it and we caress it especially when it rains. As if on sad days, when there is less visibility, you let yourself be seen more.
“Nostalgia means loving a past that makes us suffer in the present. It is a delayed happiness. It is sleeping in a hammock while continuing to remember the burning reconciliations following arguments for futile reasons. Perceiving the lack of detail. Nostalgia alone does not kill because it brings with it the pleasure of torture. "
-Gabito Nunes-
We feel nostalgia for someone, for something, for a past that is not present, but we would like it to be. We can also feel it for a present that is not and has never been. We are nostalgic for moments, for details, caresses, words ... Ultimately, it's as real as we can be, and that's why it touches us so deeply.
Sometimes the nostalgia is so great that we are nostalgia
In one article, the author stated that our past is like a country from which we have been exiled; therefore, as the one who has been exiled and feels cold, we want to return to seek warmth. In this sense, the figurative exile can be very distant, distant or almost simultaneous with our present.
All of this appears to be true: while nostalgia leads us to prolonged melancholy, wanting to return is one more way to know ourselves starting from what we have been. This does not mean that we do not want to live the present or that we are living it badly, rather that we recognize ourselves and are aware of what we have lived.
“Sometimes the nostalgia is so great that it is more than a feeling. People are homesick. It is a way of living to meet a person's gaze even in the most unlikely corners, in a confusion of hair, mouths, perfumes. A smile on the lips with a choked heart. "
-Gabito Nunes-
People are nostalgic, as the Portuguese writer says, because missing a tiny thing makes it great. Because this tiny something is absence, and we feel the need for it with our whole being. This is why we are nostalgic: because, as in love, we cannot perceive it with an average intensity, it accompanies us in our every gesture.
The two faces of nostalgia
Surely nostalgia, like most things in this life, has two sides. When we hear this word, we understand that we are getting close to something sad and sweet at the same time.
For example, missing one's family, friends or partner is like feeling momentarily unprotected; however, it also represents a hug when this lack is equivalent to knowing who we care about, who we really want with us.
“Feeling nostalgic means radically changing your routine, eating more salad and less sorbet. Nostalgia is the uncomfortable waiting for a reunion. It is imagining where I have to be now. And when nostalgia is no longer in our chest, it materializes and overflows from the eyes. "
-Gabito Nunes-
It is true that we usually remain with a melancholy face due to nostalgia, especially during seasons such as autumn and winter, with which it is most identified. However, brave people understand that nostalgia is the absence of something that was or still is worthwhile, which was or is beautiful, which made us or makes us happy.
Courageous because, if it is a permanent absence, it becomes difficult to understand the need to understand it as the price of the most beautiful things. Because nothing would ever make us feel nostalgic if it did not bring with it the certainty of a realized, probable or existing happiness.
On the contrary, and first of all, we must keep the positive aspect of nostalgia, the one that fills us, which makes us participate in the world and shows us that we are living for real, despite the consequences.
