Ghosts in my Backpack

Ghosts are scary. If you’ve ever seen one, you know that they’re haunting and they’ll make you run in the other direction. But what if this weren’t entirely a bad thing?

I’m not going to lie to you: nostalgia is a bitch. A stone-cold, tear-jerking evil demon that possesses you at the most inopportune times and drags you into its pit of sorrow and self-loathing.

I mean, seriously. What’s up with that? It comes on so suddenly and sends you down a dark desert highway to the past where you can check out any time you like, but you can’t ever leave. (Yes, the Eagles reference was intentional. No, I am not sorry for it.) And as much as we try to move past the things we’ve left behind, it’s never as simple as it seems.

We find ourselves recounting the times of old, the people who used to mean the world to us, the experiences we cherish, and we compare them to our present being. With cloud storage, we have unhampered access to all our memories. That time you went rock climbing with your best friends? The time you barbecued with your family? Or how about your first date with an ex? One look at these images - the still frames in your mind - and we are instantly saddened that we aren’t rock climbing these days because we’re buried underneath work and other commitments. How we aren’t having spicy wings with our (not creepy) uncle. Or how we’re devastated at the loss of love we once held dear. And just like that, we’re overcome with longing.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m walking around with ghosts in my backpack. Relics of who I once was, what I had once dreamt of becoming. The things I used to do and the people I used to love. I’m sure I speak for a lot of us when I say that the weight is noticeably burdensome (even among all the other crap we carry around like textbooks and laptop chargers).

Carrying around your memories and past loves is not a bad thing. I’ll admit: it’s quite refreshing at times to pull out stories of a past friend and recall the laughter, the inside jokes, and the singalongs. Even the bad days, the gross foods, and the toxic relationships are valuable and haunt my backpack at times. With these on my person, I get unrivaled context. Who I was then is not who I am now. Just because I loved that person back then, just because they were my everything when I knew them, does not mean I should want to relive the suffering with someone new who is exactly the same.

Take nostalgia for what it’s worth: a temporary reminder of people, places, and things you used to cherish. It’s a look backward. But remember it’s like a ghost that’s supposed to make you run in the opposite direction: forward. The windshield is bigger than the rearview.