When Nostalgia Sets In

            Reflecting on the past is normal; getting nostalgic over the past is also normal. I don't know how good it is to seriously dwell on the past for extended periods of time, but I do think reflection and nostalgia help our brains process what has happened and is happening. I never really realized how nostalgic I get until recently and thank goodness I'm not the only one! I'm still pretty young so I haven't experienced a ton, but I have lived long enough to build up a solid foundations of good memories. When I hear a phrase, a voice, a song that I remember or smell a familiar scent, etc.-- it takes me back to that time. And that is when nostalgia begins to set it.

            How is my first year of college over already? It feels like it just started a few months ago. Albeit, it was definitely not the year I had envisioned when this all started, but in some ways it was so much more. I got to hold on to a few of my closest friends and met some really awesome people. Which sounds so cliché, but it’s true! Words cannot possibly describe how much I've grown to love these people and what kind of influence they've had on me. Now that we've all (mostly) parted ways for the summer, I've started to remember how many good life choices I've experienced with everyone. I'll hear a lil bit of the Lord of the Rings music and I'll be there: watching the Return of the King, eating ice cream, wading in the water, and doing gymnastics in the grass. Or I'll ride with my sunroof down and smell the fresh night air... and I'll be back driving a car full of people back to Calvin after a spontaneous trip to get bubble tea. And then I'll start to miss that and those people.

            Going to my high school's orchestra concert also sparked some of this nostalgia inside of me. For the most part, my orchestra experience in elementary through high school was great. Granted, there were times I kind of wanted to throw my cello at a wall and give up on orchestra, but I'm glad (now more than ever!) that I didn't. Being back in the 5-12 concert venue made me realize just how blessed I was. Memories from middle school orchestra music filing "parties" and skipping AP Calc (with permission of course) senior year for full orchestra rehearsal came flooding back. I got real nostalgic. College orchestra is probably the best thing that happened to me at Calvin, but there's something about high school orchestra that I miss dearly. Knowing everyone's name and being so close knit with the whole orchestra is something that can't really be achieved in a college setting. More than the atmosphere I began to really miss the people I got to make music with-- and all the fun experiences we had together, like festival and after-festival-out-to-eat experiences.

            I hope that I have many great, fun-filled, good-life-choice-filled years ahead of me in college and beyond. But sometimes it's fun to look on the past and remember. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me and the people around me. It's literally so exciting to get to fellowship with beautiful people and see how they are really going to be make a wonderful impact on the world. Maybe nostalgia isn't such a bad thing after all. Maybe it lets us pick things from our past and use them to influence our future. Maybe it's best to remember the past and look forward to the future at the same time.