Zeake the Plumber

Nostalgia Pal...
...gia?

I have a lot to look forward to. No, really, I believe that. I know there are places I'm going to see, people I'm going to meet, and (possibly) a family to start of my own - all of which sounds fantabulous, In spite of all of this, I came to a realization today and it didn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Many of the moments in my life that I'll remember as my happiest, could have already come and gone.

I could be dead wrong, and I hope I am, but I really think it's true. I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but every once in a while I am hit with a somewhat random, intense bout of what I can only call "nostalgia." It's like one of those crystalizing flashbacks where everything sort of moves in slow motion and you can almost smell, taste, see, and in every other way relive a snippet of your past. It's almost enough to make you want to cue a dramatic swell in music - Lord help me if music ever coincidentally swells up during one of these because I'll think I've lost it.

So, today I'm walking by the library and I walk over this one step that's kind of stained green from the rain runoff. BOOM. I look up and I see the student center - which wasn't there at all when I came here for orientation - and I am almost instantly back in the old Hawk's Nest. I used to go there all the time for supper. I remember the pizza there - it was overpriced but really good. I'd get pizza and sometimes chips and sometimes (because I'm crazy) I'd put balsamic vinegar on my pizza. It was something I only tasted there, only for this brief window of time in my life. If it's possible to get choked up over pizza, I think I almost did. What I wouldn't give sometimes to go back to a random Thursday of my Freshman or Sophomore years. Talk to all of my old friends that I rarely see anymore. Go to those same lame basic studies classes, taste that pizza that I can't even get now.

I remember when I was 18, I kind of knew I was on top of the world. I think I've figured out why it feels so awesome to have just graduated high school. In high school you get progressively cooler the older you get. 18 years old is the climax, then you go to college and begin getting less cool the older you get. All of the sudden your birthday comes and you feel just a teeny tiny bit less excited to have a bigger number. I imagine this just gets more noticeable the more numbers you add. I used to wonder why old people didn't have birthday parties like young people - HA! My Freshman and Sophomore years were wonderful for one major reason - I didn't worry about life. For that period of time I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing, where to be, and I enjoyed it. I enjoy the music I used to listen to in my car, the old janitor man in Schwartz, picking Roach and his rodent friends up from the gas station late at night, walking in the rain from the back parking lot... even the stuff I hated, I love, and that which I loved, I will never forget.

So maybe I'm just a loser that's getting too "old" too fast. I'm 21 for crying out loud! I think it's like this for me because it isn't far enough away yet. One day my true memories will be replaced by placeholder memories, memories of memories. Everyone compartmentalizes to save space in the old noggin'. When that happens I'll remember the things that have been most important to me, but everything else will fall into the fuzzy pink blur that I'll generalize as a positive experience. One day, without thinking, I'll probably lean over to some young whipper-snapper and whisper in their ear,

"You have fun now, ya hear. These are going to be the best days of your life."

For their sake, I hope they don't believe me. I don't want to spoil it for them.