At some level, everyone experiences nostalgia. A small child misses the toys she had back when she was just a kid – two months ago. A teen misses the house he lived in when he was in the fifth grade. A college grad misses the days when she was still in high-school. You get the idea. The older you get, the more you fondly remember the aspects of the little things from the past that formed you into what you are right now.
The problem with the past is that it isn’t very portable. It is hard to capture a moment in a way that will preserve its essence and relevance. Our memories are bad under the best circumstances and downright dreadful most of the time. By the end of the day, we can’t accurately recall what we had for breakfast. So much of the details we remember of any given event are wrong. What we are better at retaining is the emotional essence of a thing. No one really remembers their first kiss. But they remember the emotional truth of that first kiss. Focusing on our emotional truth is one way to carry the past forward. Here are some other practical ways to preserve the important moments of our past:
Be Intentional About Important Life Events
Marriage is one of the most important and momentous life events you will ever experience. The ring you wear on that day will be with you for the rest of your life. Make it stand out. Instead of the same thing everybody else does, try something like an emerald cut diamond ring. It harkens back to the time when gemstones were more common for special occasions. It will be a unique piece at your wedding. And it will become a nostalgic connection to the past when it is passed down to your children and grandchildren.
Weddings are all about tradition. You need something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Many of those things come from weddings and ceremonies past. That is the nature of tradition and nostalgia. Graduations are the same way. There are practical reasons to frame and display a diploma. But there is a secondary purpose for displaying that diploma. You will not remember the specific lessons from all of your classes. But you will remember that night out with the sorority sisters and… Well, you know what I mean.
Digitize Everything
It is time for you to digitize all those old albums whether photo or music. Every family has a box full of media that doesn’t make sense in the modern era because there is not an easy way to view the media. There is a good chance you no longer have a way to process your negatives. How is your 8-track tape player holding up? Do you even have a cassette player? How about a VCR?
There is no need to indefinitely cart all that around from house to house until the media deteriorates to the point of no return. Right now, there are things you can do and services that you can use to get that old media digitized provided you don’t have the ability to do it yourself. The media is not the nostalgia. It is what’s on the media you need. And if you don’t do anything to get it off that media, you are not preserving the memories but losing them.
Make a Meaningful Connection with the Past
It is not enough to buy an old thing because it is pretty, or because it is a collectable, or because it is valuable. Those are just the byproducts of the object being old and well kept. What you have to do is make an honest and meaningful connection with the past by learning the story of that object. Learn the history. Discover who that object was important to and why. That object has traveled over time and distance to reach your hand. When you know the story, you will be able to make it a living part of your own.
Don’t make the mistake of trivializing nostalgia. It plays an important role in reminding us where we came from and where we are going. Give full expression to your nostalgia by being intentional about important life events, digitizing everything, and making a meaningful connection with the past.
