Nostalgia...it is your emotional waltz.

Inter weaved in what my mind perceives as space, another dimension is tied like a seamless fabric called time. My brain collects every event of my life and allows me to experience each one of them in the now and then, while also instantly and constantly archiving them into an enormous vault of memories for later retrieval as a record of my past. Each of my senses has the ability to somehow connect with the universe that surrounds me and pass along to my mind the necessary information to experience life as it takes its irreversible journey. Captured by chemical reactions in my brain that somehow encode themselves to become memories, each instant of my existence is given an amazing degree of care to be stored and utilized again for what seems to be an infinite number of different reasons. Nothing that man has discovered in our universe is as complicated as it is amazing as our minds. Every time I consider this fact I find myself considering how wondrous we are and what a privilege it is to be a sentient human being. Up to date, out of the all of the living organisms we have discovered, no other creature on our planet holds this gift of self awareness.

Even though it is safe to say that there should be no significant variation to the metrics that can be applied to space and time locally, somehow my perception of the passage of time is that it seems faster than it should be forcing me to constantly make the comment that "time passes too fast." To me it feels as if one day I was holding my child on my lap playing peek a boo, and then suddenly the next day I found myself wondering if those same eyes were still pretending to not see me as they swiftly passed by on their way out the door to face the world on their own. I can only assume that this strange perception of the passage of time is tied to much more than my internal biological clock and its conceptual view of sunrises and sunsets. All of those aforementioned events that have been stored in my mind somehow have been distorted making me perceive that life is too quick, too unforgiving with the passage of time if you ask me. When my children were born it seemed as if they had so much time to grow up, yet here I am 14 and 17 years later and it feels as if it all went in a blink of an eye. This swift motion of time is completely obvious when I start looking at old photographs and compare my kids from when they were just little boys to their now teenage appearance. Worst of all is taking a peek at my own childhood pictures and watching my hair slowly turn white with the passage of each season. I definitely don't feel as old as my bathroom mirror reflection insists on turning me into when I dare to look at myself in the mornings. Inside me, a tireless child still begs to laugh at the most inconsequential events of my day, yet a little bit at a time I hear me doing it less often. Remember the days in which the same dumb joke would make you laugh just as hard the tenth time you heard it as you did the first?

I am at a stage in my life in which I refuse to let go of the simple things in fear of never getting them back. Watching my children turn into young men is harder than I ever thought. Don't misunderstand me, I still love watching them as teenagers as much as I did as toddlers. In fact, sometimes I head to the kitchen to do dishes just so that I can peek out the window to see my oldest son interacting with his friends. They are in a constant state of silliness which is totally appropriate for their age, and it warms my heart to be able to see him behaving the same as everyone else. To watch him in the middle of this social interaction is a blessing, since he could easily be depressed and non interactive giving me much more to worry about instead. The same holds true with my younger son, which I am constantly thankful that he spends time with some friends too doing their thing. However, the images of early childhood happy moments keep creeping out of storage to emotionally challenge my ability to conceal a sense of sorrow because they are never to be repeated in their original context again. This emotional act does not seem to originate from a sense of regret, but rather much more from a feeling of nostalgia. So in essence, this is not about living in the past, wishing I would of done anything any different than I originally did instead. This is about not wanting to let go of the moments in my life that brought me to where I am today.

How much more can I, as a man, ask for than to have a collection of memories that can instantly make me smile no matter how sad a moment I might be going through in my life? I have discovered that in the closet of my mind I have an unlimited supply of beautiful moments to tap into when I am in need of an emotional booster. These instants that have been skillfully linked by my neurons have the most unmeasurable value of all. Within each and every one of the laughs, tender instants, passionate moments, and even tears that have been safely stored in my mind, an entire wealth of healing power is contained. So if you find yourself all tangled up while dancing the emotional waltz of nostalgia, take a moment to appreciate how lucky you are because of the gift that has been given to you with the ability to be aware of it all. Inside your own closet, you too also have what you need to heal and be OK. Tap into those wonderful memories that nobody else has but yourself and walk on to the stage of your life and dance! I promise you it feels really good once you learn the right moves.

Dad