Nostlagia

Imagine this scenario.

You have lived in a city during a certain phase of your life. Childhood, teenage years, for education or work. Then you move away. Now, after many years, your are set to visit that same city.

As you step down from the train or deboard the plane, have you ever paid attention to what emotion runs through you then? Is it anxiety, joy, sadness or sometimes an eerie feeling? I have felt all these, albeit for different cities. But why? Why do we instinctively associate that one emotion for our time spent in that city?

Nostalgia, defined as " a feeling of pleasure, mixed with sadness, when we think of happy times in the past."

Why is it that the city reminds you of that one person? More often than not, this is the case. Or it could be that one experience that shaped your life in a particular way. Moulded you into the person you are today.

A city is a living, breathing being. And you are a miniscule part of it. The city stays. You come and go. And every time you visit, it is a little bit different. That old restaurant you used to frequent has shut down. Your old office route seems different. Even going to your favourite restaurant does not feel the same because your friends aren't there with you.

So, what has changed? You? The people? Or the place? Is it just one or all of them? What is nostalgia then? Where does the sadness come from? Is it because, the city will never be the same again? Or is it because you will never be who you were, when you were there the last time?

Or is it because, you realize that you will never be able to relive that moment again? And the photo of a memory in your mind is completely different from what you feel right now as you sit there wondering.

Have you felt an emotion so strong that makes a city un-livable for you? That you know in your heart of hearts that you cannot go back there again? I have. To me, that city was my youth, my love. It was hope and promise. It was a place where I thought I would retire and settle. But now, it feels like a ghost of something that was. It feels like you are walking through ancient ruins, yet somehow you have a faint memory of being there when the place was in its prime.

A time-traveller, who remembers the joy the city brought, but feels the sadness as they see it today.

Who would have thought,

a city could make you feel this way?