Nostalgia Time

I’m entirely unsure of what the contents of this post will end up being, but I’m going to write this nonetheless. I guess it will just be stream-of-consciousness, which I’m fine with.

I’m feeling nostalgic, which happens rather frequently, but I’m starting to have realizations about my life. For the past few years I’ve been the kind of person who tries to separate his past from his present, which usually involved me getting rid of things and trying to “start anew”, if you will. Lately though, I’ve had a certain longing for my past, which I’m sure most people around my age are also experiencing currently, especially people in this generation. I’m a highly logical person, and I really don’t run off of my emotions, so I’m sort of analyzing my own longing. Now, I know that there really is no such thing as a “simpler time.” Life is always complicated and chaotic, but I yearn for my old naive thought processes. Put as simply as possible, although life is never simple, I miss thinking that it ever was.

Most people, or at least most people I have met, seem to share a common problem in adjusting to college life: missing home. I’m not one of those people, but it’s mainly because I don’t really have a sense of  “home.” I know that sounds entirely depressing, but I don’t view it as a negative. On the contrary, I believe the fact that I don’t really long to be “home” has helped me adjust to many changes in my life throughout the course of the last few years. I never really stayed in one place as a kid. Hell, I don’t think I can even count the amount of times I’ve moved to a different house or a different city on both of my hands, and that’s only including the times I remember. The longest I ever lived in one place was between 2000 and 2007, and even that wasn’t exactly constant. But I honestly appreciate that that is the kind of life I had. I’ve experienced a lot, and if anything I’ve at least found that I sure as hell know California really well.

This really is more of a spiel than a rant, and even then it’s rather pointless. Perhaps I’m just delaying the annotated bibliography I’m supposed to be writing, but even if that’s the case it’s nice to write about this.

Anyway, my nostalgic sense isn’t really me missing “home.” Rather, I miss people from various locations throughout my life, with no specific location taking president over the other. I guess I mostly miss time periods. Although my high school experience was complete and utter shit, I miss the deceptive simplicity of the friendships and living situation I had during that time. I especially miss my middle school days, when I truly began to develop into the person I identify myself as now. (I’m the kind of person who believes that you go through certain phases in your life that are more similar to becoming a complete different person who is living a completely different life than just growing up, but I suppose I can contribute that to my constantly changing living situations, which I suppose has always given me a sense that life is a series of phases.)

Seeing as I’ve hinted at the fact that I’ve lived in a variety of locations throughout my life, I suppose I’ll list a few cities I remember living in, in the order that I at least remember living in them (I like to believe that I have a fantastic memory, and usually this belief has proven itself true, but I’m also a human being…)

• Long Beach, California
• Cypress, California
• Sacramento, California (briefly)
• Belleview area, Washington
• San Diego, California
• Cypress, California (again)
• San Diego, California (again)
• Poway, California
• Costa Mesa, California
• Long Beach, California (again)
• Cypress, California (again again)
• Tacoma, Washington

Mind you, these are just the times I remember moving. If I really wanted to delve into my memory, I suppose I’d be able to tag the years that I lived in these locations too, but that’d probably be far more confusing and tasking for me than just listing the locations themselves. Also, I do suppose that if I were to label any place as the area that I have a sense of “home” it would be Long Beach, but the place I truly associate with Long Beach is an apartment I used to live in (I’ve actually lived in that same apartment twice. It was one of the first places I ever lived, when I was extremely young, and it is where I lived for a large amount of time between 2000 and 2007.) Still, that apartment is no longer a part of my life, and I can’t really return to it, so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me.

Anyway, I guess this all ended up being a kind of rant about my lack of a sense of “home.” Don’t get me wrong: I honestly am fine with the fact that I don’t have this sense of “home”, but I find it fascinating. I find myself to be an interesting case study. Strange, I know.

Alright, that’s all for now. I should probably start this bibliography.