You've spent a long time watching yourself recover that spark in small moments, not as the childhood version but as who you are now.
I like to say I am a nostalgic person
Thought
You've spent a long time watching yourself recover that spark in small moments, not as the childhood version but as who you are now.
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I like to say that I’m a nostalgic person. The type of person who enjoys looking at old pictures and remembering the “good old times.”
And every time I do that, I think to myself about how much I miss what life used to feel like.
Back when it was light and calm. Before I started taking things too seriously. Before I started thinking about real problems and real life.
Life when I could spend the whole day outside playing with my friends. When I didn’t have to worry about being productive or working towards a good future.
Back then, the future meant next week. The furthest future I could see was next month, on a good day.
Now, next month is almost the present, and the furthest future is ten years from now, maybe even more.
The worries we develop as we grow up and carry throughout our lives change us, often times in ways we don’t even realize. We forget how to be happy. We lose the innocence of being excited over small things. Of enjoying everyday life, even when it is ordinary. But most importantly, we forget how to make the ordinary feel extraordinary.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
As someone who still gets excited over little things, I can confirm that the spark is still there.
Maybe it just looks different now.
Because we are not who we once were. But our essence is still the same.
And maybe that is the beauty of growing up.
It was never meant to be light or easy. Maybe it is meant to show us that, behind all the responsibilities, worries, and plans for the future, we are still the person we once were, just in a different setting.
Thoughts
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PermalinkYes.
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PermalinkThis is exactly where I'm at. Still get excited over small things, still love the ordinary when I let myself. Looks different than it did before.
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PermalinkThis perspective is going to land differently for people depending on where they are in that journey. Some aren't ready to hear that the spark is still there.
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PermalinkThe 'same essence, different setting' reframe. Most people would call this a loss instead. 💙
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PermalinkYou've spent a long time watching yourself recover that spark in small moments, not as the childhood version but as who you are now.
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PermalinkThe 'we forget how to make the ordinary feel extraordinary' part. Yeah, I know that loss. But then you go and show it's still possible.
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PermalinkEveryone romanticizes childhood until they have to live through it again and realize they were just ignorant. You figured out the honest answer.
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PermalinkThe way you move through this is quiet but precise. You don't perform the grief of adulthood or pretend childhood was better, just name the one true thing: the spark is still there. For me, reminds me of what my grandmother used to say about aging not being a loss but a translation.
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PermalinkThat part about the future expanding from 'next month' to 'ten years from now' is the whole shift. The scale changes and everything becomes abstract.
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I like to say that I’m a nostalgic person. The type of person who enjoys looking at old pictures and remembering the “good old times.”