nostalgia

its amazing, the stealth with which nostalgia sneaks up and attacks.

it gives something as innocent as a song, or a photo, or even just the mention of a name the power to swoop in and steal your happy, carefree contentment.

nothing is ever as good as it used to be.
you miss the boy that treated you like crap until he left you completely.
you miss the friends that drifted in and out of your life at their convenience.
you miss the crumby minimum-wage job, and living with your parents, and struggling through community college.

a single reminder of that era of your life, and there goes your saturday night.
now youre in for the night, reminiscing and wishing for the past
looking through every photo, reading every journal entry, lingering in every memory.
futile, immature wishes that you could go back, change this, enjoy that a bit more.
why couldn’t life have stayed so lovely?

i’ve spent minutes, hours, days being sad about how things used to be, and how much they’ve changed.
everything seemed so good back then, what happened? 

of course, no one clings to the bad memories.
looking back it’s all peachy keen.

maybe i should think about that, next time a stray photo triggers thoughts of “better times”.
maybe they weren’t better times, maybe i was just as sad then as i am now.
maybe im just as happy now as i was then, when things were “so much better”. 

yeah, maybe things were great two years ago, but that was two years ago.
enjoy the great things as they come, because they happen everyday, and if you don’t enjoy them now you never will.
just try to be happy with your now, whatever that is.