When I was in college, one of my favorite literature professors said “the fact that we can be nostalgic about a totally shit time in our life is what makes poetry possible.”
This quote, and the sentiment behind it, is a fundamental lesson I’ve carried forward into my life. I’m nostalgic for the summer latin program I did in my early twenties, when I was literally doing latin for about 18 hours a day, barely eating, completely cut off from my friendships and family and regular life. I’m nostalgic for the first time my heart was broken, nostalgic for sleeping on the floor of trains with friends while we traveled Europe and had no budget for lodging.
I am not unique in this. We are, as humans, funny little creatures. We strive for security, for pleasure, for certainty–we avoid precarity, discomfort and uncertainty–and yet once attained, even in small doses or increments, a hole opens up in us. We miss, despite ourselves, the times in which life was challenging, shifting, not fully within grasp.