The moment struck me like a sword through the chest. The moment when I realized that the past was gone and no amount of effort would bring it back. Nostalgia was like opium, It takes your mind away from your troubles and sends you back to a simple and happy time. People get addicted to it and even rely on it for their source of happiness. The glorious day that Joe scored the winning touch down will always be a fond memory for him, but he also relied on it for validation and comfort. Even when he didn't realize he was doing it. He sucked the life out of his memory like a vampire drains its victims of blood. He played football on the weekend to relieve old glory and told himself it was just for fun.
I never played football but I have my own memories, memories that glow and sparkle in an otherwise dark life of pain and isolation. I try to relieve my old days, I try to set up time with friends and hope that it will feel as good as it used to, but it never does. Memories have their use and Nostalgia can be used in moderation, like alcohol. I use my nostalgia to get a little drunk off the past happiness and it keeps me going through the bad times. I try not to dwell on the past so much that it effects the future. Every day is a new chance to make those good memories. Every day is a rich source of potential nostalgia. Joe won't ever score the winning touch down again, because he is a banker not a pro-football player, but he can teach his son how to throw a ball and that memory will be just as fine. That will be a memory he can add to his "feel good" vault of memories that we call nostalgia. Not only will he have that happy memory, but his son will also. The best happy memories are the ones you share with others, the ones that you can reminisce about when times are tough or someone needs encouragement.
Memory is a tricky thing and often the past seems better than it truly was. Joe might want to relieve his glory days on his high school football game, but he wouldn't want to relieve that morning when his parents had a huge fight or the day before when he was stuck in math class and couldn't stay awake. You remove the bones, fillet the meat and only consume the sweetest parts of the memory.
Objects have as much power as people assign to them. If your grandfather fought in a war and gave you his prized knife that he took into battle, then you should be honored. You were given a gift of history as well as personal memory. Your grandfather remembers the war and it changed who we was as a person, that knife was proof of his deeds and the events that happened. Now you hold that knife. The knife has more stories behind it than you might have of your own. Having a physicial representation of your memory makes that memory stronger. If Joe got to keep his foot ball from the winning touch down, then he might have it on his shelf, maybe even make a display for it, depending on how shameless he wishes to be with his love for that memory. I find it hard to throw anything away, I keep anything that was given to me by a loved one, even if it was just a scrap of paper that said "Jerkface" on it. Someone that I loved thought of me and wanted to make me laugh by humorously insulting me. Someone thought of me. People don't realize always realize what their actions mean, for better or worse. a silly note might be someone's prized possession, all because of the power we assign to the object.
So when an object holds your fondest memories, when it has experienced some of your best times and knows your best stories, when an object breaks, it is only then that you realize how much power you place in your things, your trophies from the past and how much you rely on nostalgia to get by in life. Old memories can seem like phantoms in your mind, you wonder if they really did happen how you remember them. Did Joe truly score the winning touch down? It was so long ago and ever since he moved he lost touch with anyone who might have also remembered that day. but he has the football, the football is real so the memory must also be real.
When the object that held your stories is destroyed, what happens to your stories? They still exsist inside you, but you do lose a piece of the story, a small piece that makes it just a little harder to remember. On the one hand you don't want to have a room full of trophies from the past, missing out on the present because you are too obessesed with the past. On the other hand your stories make you who you are and remembering good times can keep you going when you feel like giving up. The trick is balance. Balance in all things. I try not to hold objects in higher regards than people, but when a person breaks an object with so many stories a little piece of you breaks with it.
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