I wanted to be able to bring flowers and have somewhere to put them.
— Crying in H Mart
It is my deep regret and relief that I struggle to miss anything. I would expect that in two decades of life and thus constant change, I’d grown a muscle just for nostalgia. Yet, I simply don’t have the taste for it. Perhaps it’s a semantic issue, I think that it does not have the sense of urgency that I feel is characteristic of every feeling that I have ever endured in my life. I think it’s too modest of a word to sufficiently express my profound sorrow during retrospection or my sheer indifference after.
In 2019, I moved cities but it was not nostalgia that I felt and rather a fervent agitation from not being where I had always been. Like a toy donated for other children to play with, I understood why but I resisted. The group chats, “I miss you’s,” and posts referencing tired inside jokes warmed heart. But, sooner than later, my friends and I simply had nothing to speak of. The illusion that social media is effective for maintaining my only social relationships in the long distance began to break. It just introduced more barriers such as the revelation that nothing will ever be the same. It was a straightforward and painless pill—although my fondness can remain, what’s in the past stays there.
Meanwhile, with this fresh perspective, I quite easily and gracefully assimilated into my then-new class. At some points I considered myself superior for knowing that everything was nothing but for that present moment. I did not bother making earnest friendships despite receiving invitations to multiple as I kept ruminating on the impermanence of everything. I found myself with one foot out the door of that classroom, already moving on.
Before it closed, however, news of an old friend passing reached me and my difficulty in missing anything became disgustingly clear. I was dumbfounded by the stream of messages—the progression of our collective realization of the events—and unable to capture the fact of her loss. I knew it was there, a mark that I could not seem to spot even after having turned over every part of myself. She had been so physically away from me that unwittingly, I had pushed her out of my mind too. I could only cry of shock but not pain. I was not able to effectively express myself to our friends and share their grief as I know that I could have if I were there. I felt that I had no space in my friend’s circle of grieving loved ones because I didn’t have a space in her life anymore. Soon enough, this selfish and shameful awareness stopped me from trying to reach out altogether (it wasn’t as though they actively sought me out still after the funeral).
I understand how awful I may sound, because I felt awful too. Initially, I was defensive and I took pride in my disconnection with anything irrelevant to what’s in front of me. I started to delude myself into thinking that I had no real ties to my past nor any social obligations in the present (it will only become past). I had only the assurance that I can just do better in the future (a very deceptive motto). This relieved me immensely, except that I still carried a slight shade of regret because even if I tried, I’ll have nothing to miss anymore anyway. My ever-present fear that I pretend is disinterest imprisoned me from meaningful connections and reconnections: the only things that I have missed.
Several years have passed since then and in retrospect, I realized that I was simply afraid of being outgrown and abandoned, as I am now. I was never far-sighted, I am only in constant anticipation of the day that I can be free of dread—able to succumb to every delight despite the inevitable loss and heartbreak that will follow. Although I do not feel nostalgia and do try to avoid it, in secret, I do long to exist in a present that I know I’ll miss the next morning.
One day, I was in a service van, a song of friendship blasted from the speaker. My neck hurt the whole ride as I forced myself to direct my sight on the window. I have never been more relieved to have sobbed and lost my composure in front of strangers. I could have laughed at the acute sadness that surfaced so unexpectedly after so long a time, as though my sadness is as timid as I am. I scoured my phone for my friends’ letters of goodbye from the final time they missed me.
i have a feeling many of us learn this lesson sooner or later. right there with you