Nostalgia. näˈstaljə,nəˈstaljə/

Noun. a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations [webster dictionary].

The past has always been a kind of recluse for me: an escape from the stress of the present into a world where everything had always seemed okay. However, there came a point in my life when the past became more than an escape for me. I began to live in the past, and it was bliss. In the beginning, at least.

But there's something that happens when something that is not meant to be an everlasting component of the present is pulled from its place. When I lived in the past, when all my mind was ever filled with was yearning for what I had before and what could have been, the present became foggy. Because it is impossible for a mind clouded by memories to view events in the present with a clear lens. Not living in the moment is damaging: there is so much joy, so much sadness, and so many lessons to learn that I missed because I never focused on living in the moment, because I was swallowed by my memories.

Until I discovered the importance of living in the present. The past is a time to learn from, a time to build on, but also a place to move on from. But there is a difference between occasional nostalgia and a life forever revolving around the past. It is a fine line that many walk, and for a while, I was on the wrong side. Nostalgia floods me every day: it is missing my grandparents and all the memories I shared with them while in college, missing my childhood where everything had always seemed simpler, or missing people that are no longer in my life. But living in the past is when those ideas envelope, when those memories haunt, when those memories engulf and inhibit happiness.

I learned to live in the present. It was a slow process, and it's something that I continue to work towards every single day. Presentness is mindfulness; it's experiencing every moment for what it is as seen by your eyes at that moment, not clouded by the subconscious glasses of the past or by the lens of a cell phone, of a camera. Presentness is the snapshot in your mind that will eventually become the past I now seek to move, but move away from, but in that moment is a moment unhindered. An experience that is simply a snapshot of the present.

I miss my family, my childhood, the simplicity of life as I once knew it, but it's time to once again, and once and for all, challenge myself and everyone to, in this moment, and always, be present.