Well, I'm home sick from work today.
My voice sounds like a frog's (though it's deeper than it's ever been, which I kind of like in a weird way) and I've spent much of that time watching Parks and Recreation (God bless that show), reading books (of which I just finished my third since the weekend started and I fell ill) and writing, though the writing has been sporadic and uninspired at best. Aside from realizing I'm really bored (seriously, good grief), I've had an unusual feeling the past few days that I have been unable to shake. Only today, when I was lying on my bed trying to sleep but unable to due to coughing whenever I lie down, did I realize that the feeling is nostalgia.
I have been in a fit of nostalgia for my college days, particularly my first year of college (thirteenth grade?). I cannot imagine why, but all of a sudden I miss those times in a way I never have before, and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with that. Since graduating, I never looked back. Not really, anyway. There were things, people and relationships that I missed - having just gone through a breakup made it that much harder - but I did not dwell overmuch. I tend to focus on the now. To quote Edna from The Incredibles: "I never look back, Darling. It distracts from the now." I agree with that statement, and think nostalgia is a dangerous emotion that should be avoided. For the most part. But, perhaps, looking back a teensy bit every now and then is okay?
This has crept up on me over the past few weeks. It started with listening to music that I discovered when I first started school at Bard - Guster, The Shins, Goo Goo Dolls, Mute Math (though they were a little later in the summer between freshman and sophomore year) the various Bourne Movie soundtracks, Frou Frou/Imogen Heap, etc etc etc. I wasn't even aware. Then it became TV Shows - reblossoming obsessions with Scrubs, Futurama, Invader Zim, etc etc etc.
What I miss is simple: I miss the classes. God, do I ever. They were stimulating, enriching, entertaining parts of my development as an intellectual and forward thinking person. The interactions that I had with my fellow students and faculty at Bard were similarly so. I lack that now, and I have some fear that, in the long year since my graduation, my brain has atrophied some. I returned to Bard in March, I spoke with someone about the Center for Environmental Policy, and that alone was so stimulating a conversation that I almost begged them to take me then and there. I will be applying once I have taken the GRE's and received my scores. Once again, Bard is my first choice for Grad School.
I also miss the people. Particularly the people who I met and engaged with my first years at Bard. I have not been in a place where I speak and regularly engage with members of my own cohort since... well... May 2011. Yes I have friends at my workplace, but it is not quite the same as it is to have people who are in the same walk of life as I.
I miss cultural discovery. As I said I discovered a lot of music, TV and books while at Bard and especially while attending my first year. This may be the thing I miss most of all - college is a melting pot for countless different ideas, cultures, nationalities and dreams to come together. Goodness gracious, listen to me go on.
My point is simple: I have the post-graduate blues. It's a year late, but maybe that's because of my steadfast refusal to look back. Maybe it's time that I did and realized I'm a little bit homesick. Just wish I knew where this sudden wave came from.
P.S. Interesting fact I learned in college (freshman year, actually): nostalgia comes from the Greek roots nostos and algos. Nostos means "homecoming," while algos means "pain" or "pain that is felt." So really the word nostalgia means: "pain felt for homecoming." When we feel it, we are missing a time in our life that we perceive as a sort of home. We long to return to this time - this "home" - but we cannot. (It is precisely this inability to return home that is why I find this specific emotion particularly dangerous)
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