Premature Nostalgia

As I walk to class, wearing my wired headphones and listening to a playlist I've made, filled with songs that remind me of my time studying abroad, I close my eyes. Suddenly, I am walking through the cobblestone streets of Paris, listening to Blood Orange, with my only worry in the world being what time I have to be at the airport to catch a flight to the next country I am visiting.

Lately, this feeling of nostalgia has been extra loud. With every year, every new memory, it only deepens. I turn the corner into Washington Square Park and remember the first time I walked through it, Admitted Students Day, 18 years old, nervous, and so scared, with no idea what the future held.

It's not only nostalgia for moments that have passed. It’s nostalgia for moments that are happening now, moments I’m watching unfold in real time. I can be completely present while hanging out with my friends, and in the back of my mind, already thinking about how this will all be a memory, nostalgic for a moment that hasn’t even ended yet.

“Awwww, you guys are so cute, let me take a video so we can look back at this.”

The more I think about it, the more I realize it’s not just me.

This is really all my generation knows, and all that we’ve been fed: this constant feeling of nostalgia that draws us in. That’s the catch: we miss things as they happen, maybe even before they happen. We don’t just live through moments; we start recording them in our heads, or on our phones, before they’re even over. And honestly, can you blame us? Everything around us keeps reaching backward. Even the movies coming out now are just reboots of the ones we grew up with: Camp Rock 3, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Princess Diaries 3, Freakier Friday…the list goes on.

And it's not just in movies; it is everywhere.  

It’s in the songs we all consume daily, this resurgence of “2016” pop with singers like Charli XCX, Addison Rae, Sabrina Carpenter, and Lorde bringing back that fun “girls night out” kind of music. It’s in our clothes, the baggy jeans from the ’90s, low-rise denim from the 2000s, ballet flats, overalls, the obsession with making everything “vintage.” I mean, I can’t be the only one who used to make fun of my mom’s clothes and is now begging her to give me everything she still has in her closet.

It’s in the way we document our lives, the rise of digicams, disposable cameras, and film photography. We crave that imperfect, grainy look. And if you don’t have a camera? Don’t worry, there’s a ‘vintage,’ ‘90s,’ or ‘2016’ filter waiting for you on TikTok and Instagram. It’s kind of funny, actually, how advanced our phones are, and yet we go out of our way to make everything look older. Every trend is recycled, every memory archived. We learned to romanticize the present because the future feels uncertain, but it's that habit that makes every goodbye start early.

So, is it normal to feel nostalgic about everything I do? Why do I insist on taking my camera everywhere, filming every moment, even my friends simply walking in front of me? I’ve wondered about this a lot, especially the night in Paris when I brought it out clubbing, and it got stolen. It's a question I keep coming back to: why do I, and what seems to be the rest of my generation, feel the need to document everything? Are our kids going to ask us one day, while going through old photos, to see the meal we ate or the coffee shop we studied at on a random Tuesday afternoon? Part of me wonders if we’re archiving our lives too much, or not enough.

I believe it’s a mix of things. Yes, part of me doesn’t want to forget, which is why I have a 30-minute video of my commute home from school to my dorm in Paris. But there’s also a part of me that finds so much joy in looking back at these moments. It feels like you can relive what you experienced, like it’s not fully gone. It’s proof that it happened, and proof that I’m living a life I once only dreamed of. A life I’m proud of, and so grateful to be living.

There was this moment on my plane ride to my spring break destination last year. I put my headphones on, played my “flying and thinking” playlist, looked out the window, and cried for the whole three-hour flight, even though I hadn’t even gone on the trip yet, even with two months of studying abroad still ahead of me.  I don’t see this as a bad thing; I think it's something beautiful.

So yes, I filmed my whole walk back from class because I was afraid I’d forget it. But now I can watch that video back and think about all the memories I’ve made, and feel grateful that I was able to live them at all. Which brings me back to this quote:

“Nostalgia is proof you are living a life to be proud of. What a privilege to yearn for your own memories.”

The truth is, nostalgia is not something we can run away from or push to the side. It's ingrained in all of us, and it can hit at any time. But that doesn't need to be a bad thing. Maybe it’s just a reminder of how beautiful life can be, how lucky we are to have moments worth missing. Because even on bad days, I can throw on my study abroad playlist, walk through New York, and smile, replaying all those beautiful memories I made in my head.

I used to feel so guilty for this constant nostalgia, like I was living too much in the past. But the truth is, it's really not something I can simply turn off. And maybe I don’t want to. Maybe my kids won’t care to see every latte or street picture from my camera roll, but maybe I will. Because nostalgia isn’t a curse; it’s proof that I’ve lived deeply enough to miss it.

“What a privilege it is to yearn for our own memories.”