Nostalgia for the now
How do you stay in the moment while appreciating the moment?
I know there are several new subscribers here this week and I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome you.
A quick intro for the newbies….
I’m Bethany, I’m a writer, a working mom, a certified lactation consultant, a brand marketing and content expert from 9-5, a chaser of curiosity, and so on. I work in marketing but I’ve spent time in many industries from fashion to beauty to fitness and now I’m deeply entrenched in the creator economy. I started this SubStack to get back to one of my first loves—sharing my experiences through writing. I had a blog back in ye olde OG blogger times (aka 2008/2009) and I wish I’d kept it going and so I’ve found myself back here with all of you and loving it. We’re here to reflect on all sorts of things. You’ll hear what I’m thinking about each week, and if you feel compelled, I hope you’ll reply some time and tell me what you’re thinking about. We explore all kinds of things here from random snobbery to how it feels to take on a new hobby to compelling media and beyond. It’s a potpourri of topics and I hope you’ll find something to ponder along the way. Welcome!
Wow. I’m amazed at how just a single week off has made it feel as though I haven’t written in a lifetime. I’m returning to you refreshed after a cup-filling trip to Colorado. My husband and I packed up the kids and flew off to spend time with my little sister and her family. It was short but incredibly sweet. While we were away, I had a very particular emotional experience that left me curious about how universal it might be.
At two distinct points on this trip, I felt a sensation that I’ve since labeled “nostalgia for the now.” One moment found me watching my kids play happily alongside my sister’s kids by the water in a park in Golden, CO. The sun was shining, they were smiling, getting dirty, and giggling together. And in that moment, I became acutely aware of how cinematic the scene was. I shuffled through a deck of emotions in quick succession. I began anticipating the ache of the moment ending. I felt reflective, watching my sister’s kids play with mine, transported back to how we used to play as children and remembering how I dreamed of this exact type of moment when we were both pregnant. Something about that sunshine-drenched afternoon in the mountains with little pieces of her and me flitting around together felt surreal. I realized as this whole scene unfolded that I would be nostalgic for that moment as soon as it ended
The second moment happened when we met some friends from college out for an early evening cocktail. They just welcomed their first baby after a long road of obstacles and some very trying times. I’ve known the husband in this couple since the first week of my first year of college. We’re talking 20 years (how?!) of friendship. And I know how much this baby was dreamed of and hoped for. When I got to hold her and relish in that delicious newborn scrunch and how she fit perfectly against my chest, I instantly started crying. It was like time condensed. It felt like holding my dear friend’s dream made solid. I was so present in the moment, feeling the significance of holding the child of someone who knew me as an unfinished work, still a child in a lot of ways. But, I was also outside my body watching the moment go by, knowing it was one of those shiny objects you wish you could store away and revisit for a dopamine rush any time you please.
I committed to myself that I’d write all these feelings out before I Googled this sensation to find out if it’s a phenomenon that has been studied. Wouldn’t you know, nothing is new under the sun and there’s a name for this complex rush of feeling in a profound moment: anticipatory nostalgia.
In one of the first papers to label the sensation, anticipatory nostalgia is defined as: “missing aspects of the present before they are lost in the future.” A more verbose definition from a later article captures it even further, “[anticipatory nostalgia is] a fascinating cocktail of emotions that prompts us to imagine the present through the lens of the future, causing us to perceive the present as the past, as we project our current emotions onto anticipated moments from the future.”
The research into this sensation of feeling is very new. The paper I mentioned above was published in 2016 and is the oldest mention of the term that I’ve found. As I read article after article about this jumble of feelings, one theme emerged: we don’t have solid proof that this is either good or bad for us.
One camp argues that anticipatory nostalgia likely stems from anxiety that things won’t be as good in the future. This more negative view touches on a question I’ve pondered as I’ve planned to write this newsletter—does indulging in these thoughts of how I’ll miss this moment when it’s gone pull me out of the present and cut my enjoyment short? An article written by Dr. Krystine I. Batcho in Psychology Today expounds that question pretty succinctly, “Paradoxically, the desire to hold on to the present might jeopardize full engagement in it.”
But as I look back at those moments in Colorado with a scrutinizing eye and dissect them, I was feeling an ache about them ending, yes, but I was also feeling immense joy and gratitude. And that seems to be the key to making anticipatory nostalgia work for and not against us. Professor of Psychology and one of the very few people to study anticipatory nostalgia, Tim Wildschut, said it well, “That early sense of loss is in fact the recognition of the fact that what you are experiencing is very special and unique. Your brain thinks ahead at such a moment and knows that this is something that you will recall with great pleasure later on. It gives you the opportunity, for example, to take a picture, or do something else that will let you capture the moment so that you can remember it better later.”
And that’s exactly what we did when I was in Colorado. We took pictures of our smiling kids and that squishy new baby. We acknowledged how surreal those moments felt and how we hoped we’d always remember what they felt like. Until science can tell us that this is definitely stealing some of the joy out of the present, I plan to approach those golden moments in much the same way as Jim and Pam….
I love to stumble upon these shared human anomalies and to find common ground in the way we’re all navigating the world. It feels powerful in a time in our history when there is a lot of tumult and uncertainty to acknowledge that moments worth remembering are happening on ordinary days. Letting the specialness of those moments be deeply felt and recognized only emphasizes the unique experience of being human, changeable, and ephemeral.
Still thinking about…….
Absolutely loved this article from Otegha Uwagba about gatekeeping and recommendation culture
Eyeing a few 100% cotton cardigans for covering up on chilly spring nights. This one caught my eye.
This linen dress is sitting in an open tab on my computer. So affordable and a beautiful silhouette.
Really enjoyed Liz’s reflection on parenting and hovering.
I cannot get this damn cat’s song out of my head.