Flag in Church Window

There comes a time for many when “home” ceases to hold nostalgic power and becomes simply a place of birth. It’s not easy, this break from a romanticized past, though it’s also possible our place of origin never reached a place of comfort at all. Some are born into discomfort. Others grow into it. All of us deal with it. Most of us hide it - or at least think that’s what we’re doing.

And because discomfort is so taboo in our society, we are consistently sold nostalgia. Nostalgia requires a foundation of comfort. If we succumb to a push into an idealized past, then we get a sugar high that distances us from the discomfort of the present. But it is discomfort that forces us forward. It is discomfort that generates growth.

Romanticized memory encourages stasis. Nostalgia is a drug that convinces us the past was better than the present, and that hinders us from being fully . . . present. There is a difference between remembrance and nostalgia. They are not the same thing. I wonder how many realize that. And I wonder how many care.