Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
Hope: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
These are the two sensations that I currently find myself stuck between, past and future. It is strange right now, but I am not very presently focused. Whether or not this is good is an issue that can be addressed and I would be willing to listen to arguments either way, but right now I am trying to find a balance between past and future.
Past: I have always been pretty nostalgic, one going so far as to call me a nostalgia whore, and he was 100 percent correct in his assessment. I yearn not only for previous times of my life, but for previous times period; I am enamored by the 1950s and very much miss the 1990s. This will always be true of me. However, right now I have been ruminating for some time about my college years, especially my senior year and a little before and the people that I was friends with, the sensations that I experienced back then, then hopes that I had, and ultimately the life that I lived. Granted, I am super thankful for the life that I currently lead and I consider myself entirely blessed, but there is a lot of good I used to do and a lot of good people that I was friends with and I miss the presence of those people in my life. Ultimately, there is nothing that I can do about this, but it does not change the emotions and heart strings connected with these people. That there is no changing and it is one of the reasons that I tend to run from my emotions, for fear that the overwhelming feeling that I often get when thinking about people of utterly missing them will come streaming back and there will remain what some people might call 'sadness'. I am not really sure what sadness is, but I think that it is akin to this type of feeling, knowing that there are good people with whom my relationship is not now and may not ever be the same. Consequently, I have allowed my mind some time to gallivant about in the past, seeking memories and orientations that I have long since not been in contact with. Another way that this nostalgia plays into my mind is trying to remember what type of person I was. I am and always do put a huge emphasis on not being selfish and I sometimes wonder if I am being too selfish (see present). I feel that if I allow myself to dwell at least partially in this nostalgia, then it will allow me to take the best parts of who I was and allow them to shine now. Nostalgia has purpose, but even independent of that I have felt it very acutely lately.
Present: I often spend mental energy wondering what type of a person I am being to others and spend a fair amount of time being self-inspective. This can get overwhelming, so the fact that I have been most focused on past and future lately has been a welcome change.
Future: 'What does my future hold?' This is the question that has been bouncing around my head lately. My future beyond next year (June of 2016 to be exact) is nothing more than a giant question mark. I know some very very general things that I want to accomplish or that I value but the context that this takes in my life is a question that does not appear to be readily answered. It is in some sense exciting to be able to go anywhere and do anything, and I have a lot of hope because at the time I will be 25 with so much in front of me and my only really strong, motivating passions are the ones to love God and love others. I can do that in a number of ways and I am not glued to something very specific. However, one thing I do know is that at that time I will quit my job and find something that I am more passionate about. I love that God has given me hope and even excitement over what lies ahead despite it being very unknown and even a tad (and perhaps more than) fearful. What is most frightening about it is that I may not by that time be as good of a man as I would like to be, that I may not be willing to put in the effort that a life that I would like to live takes. But, 'perfect love casts out fear', and what is else is that it takes hope. What my mind has been playing with is the excitement, the possibilities, but the hope is a necessity, the hope must accompany the other sensations to calm and quell the fear. I love this emotion because it really does allow my mind to play quite an enjoyable little game of 'what if?'
Ultimately, these are the two sensations that I have felt myself vacillating between. Both are great sensations (for the record I intentionally use that word over 'emotion'. To me 'sensation' is more of a technical term denoting state of mind or current state of being rather than 'emotion', which I liken as something closer to feeling.) which makes this time of my life a pretty enjoyable one, and as I said, it is a nice change of pace to not fret over the type of person that I am right now. Revisiting past and also visiting future possibilities have been something that I greatly enjoy and that has been healthy. Not really sure if there is anything to glean from this, just more of a state of the blogger.
On the lighter side: I have really been enjoying the x-files. 4+ seasons in and it is a show that seems to be tailor made for me. I have been thoroughly enjoyed the chemistry between Scully and Mulder and although the show follows a pretty predictable format and some episodes are more gruesome than I would like, it does have a dry sense of humor which contributes to the tone of the show and the 90s nostalgia is great as well, from the fashion to the lingo. I am looking forward to marching through the rest of the episodes and seeing how this primary relationship evolves and if the little teases that they have been dropping throughout the show pay off at all.
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