One of my favorite parts about coming home is looking through old stuff. Whether it’s home videos, old journals, photo albums or school projects, I love walking down memory lane. I am a very sentimental person. Part of that comes from my personality, but part of that comes from a recognition of the human need for some form of sentimentality.
I tend to find, however, that many people do not believe sentimentality is necessary or even helpful. Dictionary.com defines the word sentimental as “expressive of or appealing to sentiment, especially the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia.” Sentimentality comes out of an interaction between one’s emotions and memories. Although mushy-gushy-romanticized sentimentality can be dangerous and hypnotizing, there is a healthiness that comes with sentimentality.
Sentimentality gives us space to remember the past. Although it is extremely important to embrace life’s here-and-now moments, it is also beneficial to re-live and remember the years that have past. The holiday season tends to foster the space for these memories to come to the surface. There’s nothing quite like sitting around the dinner table and reminiscing about the family-vacation-gone-wrong or the adventures you had when the power went out in the house. Remembering and appreciating the past is an essential part of living in the present.
Sentimentality lets us laugh at ourselves. My siblings and I love to watch old home videos. Whenever we are home for a break, we sit in front of the T.V. for hours and laugh uncontrollably at ourselves. Sometimes we giggle at the cute things we said as toddlers. At other points, we laugh hysterically at the dumb, self-recorded “movies” we made. It is important to create opportunities to laugh at ourselves—and sentimentality allows us to do just that.
Finally, sentimentality helps us to see how far we have come and the progress we have made in our lives. I have kept a journal since I was seven years old. It is entertaining to read what I wrote as an seven-year-old:
“January 18, 2002: I have cooked scerambeled eggs and I love the taste of them. My mom helped me on the stove and I had them for brecfost and I like eggs.”
Old journal entries can be quite hilarious. But with age, my journal entries have become more meaningful. In more recent journal entries, I write about the things I never wanted to forget as well as the everyday mundanities. With both significant and ordinary events, I am given entrance into the world of my mind in the past. By reading these journal entries, I learn and understand where I am coming from. What did I think about when I was in eighth grade? How did I grow from that experience? In what ways did this relationship shape who I am today? Here, sentimentality is important because it helps me understand who I am.
Though sentimentality has its limits, it is a beautiful and necessary state of being. Sentimentality allows us to remember life’s significant moments, laugh at our younger selves and appreciate and accept where we have come from. While I do believe sentimentality has the tendency to become idealized and idolized, it can be used in pleasant and productive ways. If anything, a small dose of sentimentality will help us to better remember the most important parts of our lives—because in remembering, it is much harder to forget.
