Nostalgia: It's Complicated.

What looking back secretly reveals about our here and now.

I’m 17.

Rolling up in a ‘71 Dodge Dart with 140,000 miles on it, a slant-6 engine that never quit, brakes that slow-rolled more than stopped, and a radio that cost more than the car (which isn’t saying much).

Depeche Mode, Billy Ocean, Flock of Seagulls, Miami Sound Machine, Stevie Wonder, and Duran Duran.

Oh, and hair. I. Had. Hair.

And great health. And strength. Muscles (that part might be made up). A tan (that part was true, but in hindsight, pretty dumb. Baby oil instead of SPF 1-million, really?!).

A sense of freedom, lightness, and possibility. Like life was good, an abundance of time and opportunity lay ahead.

Ahhhhh, nostalgia.

Google/Oxford calls it “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past.”

Alternative take…

Nostalgia is less a longing for the past than it is a failure of the present, bundled with a side-order of selective memory, a dollop of gratitude deficit, and sense of diminished possibility and agency.

When I find myself slipping into nostalgia, there’s always a certain melancholy that arrives with it. Sadness. Low grade. But it’s there.

Why?

It reminds me not just of so many beautiful, joyful moments, but also of the march of time and the inevitable change life brings to my body, mind, heart, relationships, and life. It’s as much about loss as it is love.

Some within my control, some not.

Some desirable, some not.

Think about it…

We’d have no reason to be nostalgic if our present experience also gave us the feeling we associate with times left behind. Sure, we’d remember, maybe even revel, but the longing part, the underlying feeling of loss, just under the skin sadness, wouldn’t be there.

Does it have to be that way?

In a weird way, being nostalgic is a tell. And, an invitation.

It invites us to acknowledge not only the truth of change, but also the fuller scene that wraps the moment of nostalgia. To own the fact that, oftentimes, the bigger “old times” picture delivered equal helpings of confusion, frustration, futility, isolation, sadness, or just the head-spinning, yet completely natural delirium of being young. Suffering born of an adolescent lack of awareness of who you really were, how to find your people, or feel the way you wanted to.

In this way, nostalgia is less about a failure of the present, in contrast to the past, but rather, an ode to selective memory. Few of us would want to go back to our youth, if that journey also included not just the vignettes of celebratory experiences, but also the fuller sweep of those times.

On the whole, I had a pretty great childhood. Would I love to relive to some of those incredible moments, often doing highly-questionable things with boneheaded friends? Of course, yes. But, not at the cost of so much of the grace that now defines my life, and the lack of younger me confusion, isolation, and othering that wrapped around those early life moments.

Now, when I find myself dropping into a space of nostalgia and feel not just the revelry, but also the sadness bubble up, I remind myself to do four things:

1. Drink it in.

Revel in it. Let it flood the system in all the good ways. Those scenes and feelings, they matter. They’re a part of what made you YOU. Moments that stay with you that long, and occasionally beckon you back, remain in our memories for a reason.

Find the gift in them. And, at the same time, if a certain undertone of lack or loss accompanies them, that’s okay, too. Let it all come. Feel it all. But, before revelry becomes longing, take a few extra steps…

1. Broaden the scene.

Remember not just the nostalgic vignette, but also the fuller experience that defined that season of life.

That ‘71 Dodge Dart? Straight-up terrified me. The only way I could stop the car was to death grip the steering wheel, giving leverage to a double-footed stomp on the brakes, while trying to stop the car from veering off the road, because braking automatically turned the steering wheel right. My hair? I can’t believe I’m saying this, was such a thicket I dreamed of being older when it’d get thinner and more manageable (be careful what you wish for).

That sense of freedom, play, and confidence? All I could think about was how others perceived me. My freedom was always bound by their fictional, transferred perception of my worth. I was performing and projecting who I thought they’d accept, never quite fitting in, and feeling perpetually outside, always welcome, rarely sought.

My bent toward possibility? Okay, was real, and has never left me. But I now experience with a sense of earned confidence, rather than blind faith.

2. Find grace and gratitude in the present.

Look beyond whatever sense of loss this scene represents in my current incarnation. Acknowledge the reality of change. Of loss. And rediscover the good in the now.

Sure, my body can’t come close to doing what it could when I was 18. And, it experiences pain in a way that is very different, more persistent now. But, it can still celebrate life, hiking hours a week in the mountains with friends. And, more broadly, I’m ridiculously blessed in so many ways that either did not or could not exist when I was a kid.

I know myself in a way I never did then, and am clear on who I am, what matters, and what does not. I share myself with close friends and family and feel seen, safe, and held in a way I never did back then. I still have a sense of unbridled possibility, but now also carry both the scars and the deep knowing that I am capable of not just having, but unlocking potential, turning it into something real, sometimes failing, but coming back enough times to know I can.

Whatever flashes of glory seem to have been left in the rearview mirror of my youth, I have so much more to be grateful for now, even while I walk into a season that gently erodes some of the very things that defined me, that I celebrated as being the essence of me, as a kid.

3. Explore how to recreate the original scene’s feeling in your current reality.

Whatever the underlying feeling represented by the nostalgic scene, ask, “how can I recreate that feeling today, but differently?” How can I dissociate it with the circumstance, and reclaim the essence of it, a new and different version of freedom, connection, and possibility, now?

Yes, even if your life, relationships, body and mind and circumstances are profoundly different. I can’t drive around with my idiot friends at 2am in a 1960s Lincoln Continental with the windows open in the middle of winter, screaming “video killed the radio star” at the top of our lungs, with the radio blaring.

But I can invite a similarly offbeat gaggle of friends over to our place to cook them a soulful dinner, ply them with homemade sangria and tell stories and laugh into the early hours.

I can go walking in the woods with my kid, who holds my heart in a way those childhood friends could never touch.

I can sit on my porch, drinking in the morning sun with my wife, pinky in pinky, settling into a connection born of three-plus decades doing life together.

Sure, I’ve lost the ability to live in a certain way. The facts of my life have changed. But far more determinative of a life well-lived, are the feelings created by the facts. And we can recreate those in new and different ways that often accommodate our inability or unwillingness to “do it the way we used to be able to.”

This is the invitation side of nostalgia.

It begs us to examine how we might step back into a place of agency and action, joy and creation, peace and connection. Freedom, in whatever definition is relevant to the lives we’re now living.

Now, whenever I feel a sense of nostalgia, I wonder, what’s that telling me? 

What is the information subsumed by the feeling?

What is the truth beneath the recollection, the lack beneath the longing?

And how might this change the way I see, celebrate, re-examine, interact with my modern-day self and world differently?

How can I acknowledge the loss, but also love and savor what is good, and continue to act in a way that lets the arc of my life bend toward possibility, connection, and grace?

As always, just thinking out loud here.

What do YOU think?

With a whole lotta love & gratitude,

JF

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Other fun stuff…

Good Life Project | listen & watch

We’ve had some great convos happening on the Good Life Project podcast over the last few weeks, including a deep dive on headaches and migraines (which, sadly, is a part of my story) and some cutting-edge treatments that are both here now and are coming soon. Also, loved the convo on internal family systems, which has become kind of like the cool kids approach to therapy these days. In no small part, because it’s incredibly effective for so many people. I wanted to better understand what it is, and how it works. This conversation did not disappoint!

Listen here now.

In case you didn’t know, we also air select episodes on Youtube. So if you’re interested in watching instead of listening, here’s the convo about headaches. I learned so much!

2x20™ Mini-Update.

I’m writing from the lobby of a hotel in Palm Springs, California, where the temperature peaked at 115-degrees today, and, at some point, my lips and eyes felt like they were melting off my face. We’re on an advance scouting and experience design adventure for our upcoming 2x20 Retreat in October. We spent some time visiting the venue. It’s this stunning, modern home where 20 midlife adventurers will gather for three-days of unfolding, awakening, and connecting (and yummy food and lots of laughs and stories).

We did a whole lot of “edible curation.” My wife, Stephanie, is an incredible experience designer, so attention to detail is everything, especially when it comes to food.

The October event is sold out, so no link or info pages. But if we do it again, I’ll let you know how to get on the early notice list, since spots seemed to go very quickly. Getting super excited for it. I’ll share a debrief, once I’m on the other side. Along with a near-final big update on the whole 2x20™ endeavor, reflections on coaching a small, wonderful cohort of midlife humans through their own 2x20 adventures, co-creating the 2x20 retreat with my wife, and a whole bunch of other awakenings.

Also, you may have noticed I’ve pulled back to writing here twice a month as we’ve headed into the dog days of summer, and generally, sharing longer-form. Yes, it’s August, and everything tends to slow down. But, no, that’s not why I’ve made this shift. In fact, for me, so much is speeding up.

The confluence of later-in-life adulting and a mad creative impulse have taken over. Plus, I’m increasingly in the “build” phase of my own 2x20, so there is a ton happening behind the scenes. This shift is more about running a micro-experiment, born of my own 2x20, on reallocating time and energy in a way that feels most aligned to both what I want to be doing now, and what I want to bring to life in the fall. Lots more on that in September/October.