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The Mystifying Feeling of Pre-Nostalgia
The beautiful, tragic feeling of missing a moment before it is gone
It is the golden hour. The sun is low in the sky and casts oblong shadows that dance as the wind rustles the fiery leaves still clutching to the trees. You are on a front porch, wrapped in a blanket, watching the sun make its dramatic descent. You revel in this moment, delighting in its calm and its beauty, wanting it to last forever. And you feel a stitch of sadness knowing that it will soon be gone and that you will someday look back at that time with longing.
You are experiencing pre-nostalgia, that ethereal feeling of missing something before it’s gone; missing a moment or a time in your life as you are living it. It is a nebulous state of consciousness that can leave you bewildered, but one by which I am spellbound.
My fascination with pre-nostalgia may stem from the fact that I have a healthy fear of, perhaps an obsession with, the passing of time. Memories pop up on my phone from a year ago, two years ago, and never once have I seen them and thought, wow, that feels like so long ago. Not once! Instead, I mourn how quickly this beautiful time in my life has sped past me. I wonder, am I still youthful? How many more opportunities will I have to be gobsmacked by the realization that 365 days have come and gone…
