Nostalgia,

I am writing this letter as I board a bus bound for a new life. I thought leaving you behind would be difficult. Every where I look, though, it seems I am reminded of you; whether it be a street corner I drive past vaguely reminding me of a friendlier and familiar one, or the bus itself resembling one the marching band has traveled in. I find myself frequently in throes of wistfulness, constantly seduced by your better-thens and could-have-beens. The journey to college, an event I have been looking forward to for years, has become a bitter migration north. You whisper of my ear of goodbyes not said and friends left behind, of the simplicity of "life back then", the so-called "good old days", a toxic and enchanting place in which everything in the past is gorgeous and straightforward and wonderful and colorful and without comparison, leaving the present in bleak, muted tones that can never live up to the tantalizing picture of the past you have painted. Your honeyed words make a past so perfect I can't help but try and mimic it, only to have my attempts to relive what once was leave me feeling agitated and unsatisfied.

You can't repeat the past. I understand now what game you play, what it is you do to me. Through you, the past contains no mistakes, has no trials or tribulations. You weave a story composed of solely positive memories, which once seemed a blessing but now binds me in an all-consuming fervor to recreate what once was had, thwarting me from attempting to found new experiences, to forge new memories. Nostalgia, you toxic temptress, I will not let you hold me back any longer from exploring my future, from starting this new chapter in my life. This time of transition is terrifying, you aren't wrong, but I look forward to the challenges and opportunities it will bring. I look forward so I may look back-- four years from now, I want to review the time I spent and how I spent it with pride, free of lamenting and longing. Even the old can become new; old friendships don't have to be relived, they too can become something brand new in the wake of this metamorphosis. I accept my past how it was, and look forward to embrace the future. I am my own author of this new chapter of my life, and I will not have it co-written by thinking about what used to be, what could have been. And when this journey finally comes to a close, I hope I will have discovered who I am. Although I don't think I've met that person yet, I am confident that I will be content, and look forward to meeting myself.

And you, nostalgia, probably won't ever truly go away. But your reign over the way I percieve my life is over. That is one thing that will never change.

To all who read, who find themselves as I once did:

We are all ungoing a great, exciting, wonderfully frightening transformation. Don't let the past hold you back.