BY: ALVA POLETTI
All my life, I have regarded nostalgia as the union of loss and grief—two constant companions that have walked beside me for as long as I can remember. This relationship has often been the root of my recurring bouts of depression. Many times, I have wished to rid myself of this part of my mind, to focus more on the music of the present than the siren songs of the past.
You see, being deeply nostalgic means experiencing little deaths everywhere, every day—whether it’s the redesign of a milk carton, the deconstruction of a building, or the cutting down of a familiar tree. Living life as a nostalgic is, in a way, an endless period of grieving for moments that have passed and will never return. While others have told me I should treasure my memories, I have often viewed them as nothing more than the enablers of my nostalgia. My memory, although a treasure chest, has often felt too weighty to carry, for every treasure, after all, comes with the burden of loss.
Yet recently, life has shown me that nostalgia might not be entirely detrimental. Perhaps it has served a purpose, after all, preparing me for the greatest pain a living soul can endure: the death of a loved one.
For context—and to give full disclosure—my cat of 14 years has just died.
In the days following his death, I found myself drowning in an endless stream of tears and sorrow. Although the feeling of loss itself wasn’t unfamiliar—my nostalgia had already shown me its contours—this grief existed on another level. It was consuming, and yet it never felt sufficient. I thought I would cry for the rest of my life. If something as trivial as the Sims 2 loading screen could previously move me to tears, then you can imagine the devastation of realising your best friend since childhood now existed in a place beyond reach.
At first, I thought the solution to making my grief feel sufficient was to make the whole world mourn him. Perhaps then, the sorrow might subside. But what I eventually came to understand was that trying to teach others to love him so they might mourn him was a fruitless task. As Winnie the Pooh wisely said to Piglet: “Love isn’t something you spell; it’s something you feel.”
If you’re not a feelings person, allow me to explain it with the laws of physics. Newton’s third law states: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In simpler terms, losing is the reaction to having; grieving is the reaction to loving. The more beautiful memories you create, the more beautiful moments you lose. The deeper you have loved, the deeper you will grieve. No one could grieve him as much as I do because no one has loved him as deeply as I have.
This perspective—while by no means revolutionary—has helped me. It has allowed me to face the ugly beast of loss and even embrace it. Allowing love and grief, having and losing, crying and laughing, missing and gratitude to coexist is, I’ve found, a beautiful place to be. And while losing someone I loved so deeply has amplified my sorrow infinitely, I feel that my nostalgia has, in its own way, prepared me for the greater losses that we all must eventually face.
Just like fear and bravery are are intertwined, so are loss and love inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. And while grief feels unbearable in its intensity, it stands as a testament to the depth of the love that preceded it. That, I believe, is the true essence of nostalgia: not simply a reflection of loss, but a profound and enduring testament to love.
Now, whenever I am engulfed by a wave of sorrow, I return to this quote (also from the one and only Pooh): “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
