Nostalgia is the sweetest drug

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.

Ghosts of the past

Brian lived in a one bedroom flat. He had a cat named Archimedes. But Brian usually just called his cat “Meow face”. Brian sat back in his armchair and watched television. His apartment was almost devoid of furniture, all except the TV, armchair, fridge and a mattress on the floor that he used as a bed. “Come here meow face” Brian said as he patted his lap. Archimedes purred and trotted over. The cat jumped up into Brian’s lap and instantly fell asleep. “Good meow face” He said softly as he patted his cat on the head.

Brian felt so relaxed that he began to drift off to sleep. His breathing slowed and he closed his eyes. He was so comfortable and Archimedes purring was very soothing. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep he heard loud banging noise come from his closet. Brian jumped and so did Archimedes. The two walked carefully toward the closet. No further sounds were heard. Brian leaned in and slowly opened his closet. His pulse raced as the door slowly opened. He looked inside and didn’t see anything unusual. Just his coats and a bowling ball he had been meaning to use one day. Then another loud bang was heard from the closet door. Brian jumped and then looked at the door itself. The closet was open, but something was banging on the door. “Whose there?” Brian asked. Archimedes looked up at Brian. Maybe to say “Are you talking to a door?” or maybe the cat was simply a cat and looked up because he heard his master speak.

Brian could hear whispers coming from inside the door, or rather on the other side of the door. As if the closet door was still closed. Which it wasn’t. Brian closed the door and now stared in amazement and shock an opened glowing door. The closet door could open a closet or it could open a floating door into another world. Brian put his hand through the new opened door. When he pulled his hand out a light flashed and transparent people began walking into Brian’s apartment. From the corner of his eye he could almost recognize their faces. They all looked like people he knew. Brian’s peripheral vision picked up all sorts of details on these transparent figures. Clothes, faces, hair color, skin color, it was all slightly transparent but still very vivid, but every time he looked right at them they would lack any features at all.

“Who are you?” Brian asked. A few of the figures tried to answer but they spoke only in whispers. “who are you?” Brian asked again. One the figures walked over and touched Brian’s head. Brian had a sudden flashback to playing softball as a kid. His team lost and on top of that he hurt his leg. His coach came up and comforted Brian. The mild injury and lost game didn’t seem so important because of how supportive the coach was and eventually seeing how supportive his parents were.

Brian snapped out of it but now suddenly saw that one of the figures was his coach. When looked at head on, the coach figure didn’t loose his features. “Are you all ghosts? I thought you were still alive, Coach!” Brian said. The coach smiled “We are memories, ghosts of your past. You have to sort your memories out kid, you bottle too much up,” Said the kindly coach.

Brian nodded. It was true, he bottled up a lot of his emotions and even tried to bury his most unpleasant memories. But he wondered if he was having some kind of mental break down. His memories glided around the room. Some of them seemed to be commenting on his lack of furniture. Brian knew that it was probably one of his old girlfriends. Then he got a flashback from thinking about the girl. “Your not going to buy THAT are you?” Asked Susie. The flashback ended abruptly. Brian looked annoyed now. “There is a reason I was trying to forget most of you!” He shouted. “Except you coach, not sure why I forgot about that one time you helped me” Brian quickly added, as if the coach was a real person with real feelings. “Everyone out!” He shouted. The figures swirled up in the air and Brian began having flashbacks one after another. His memories were becoming unorganized. Old Jobs, past relationships, dead pets and dead relatives, all of these memories came swirling back.

Brian’s head spun and he fell to the floor. His life had been a long path of twists and turns, some good and some bad, but when he tried to stuff the bad away and try not to think the bad memories it eventually built up. “So what if my ex-girlfriend was a bitch. That was her personality. I don’t need to beat myself up over the break up.” Brian muttered to himself as his memories flashed before his eyes. “I didn’t know unscrewing pieces of grandma’s wheel chair would be dangerous. I was five! I was FIVE!!!” Brian shouted, as guilt tried to grip at his every memory. “That’s enough!” He finally shouted and then stood up. He was ready to yell and scream at those annoying transparent figures, but they had all disappeared. Brian looked over and noticed the door was gone too. Then he looked down and noticed he was still in his chair. He assumed it was a dream and he had just woken up abruptly “What a crazy dream” Brian told Archimedes, who responded with a long yawn.

Though it was a brief event, it affected Brian. He remembered so much of his past, both good and bad. The good memories made him feel a little happier and his mistakes made him a little wiser. He started to try and learn from his mistakes instead of tormenting himself with guilt and obsessing over what could have been different. Though Brian dismissed the event as a dream, it still stuck with him. the rest of his life was a little better because of the lesson he learned. Meanwhile, Archimedes didn’t learn any lessons, but instead was just always content and was happy for the rest of his life, because he was a cat.