So my girlfriend broke up with me last night, again. Turns out she'd done it about a month ago, but so vaguely that I couldn't even tell. Awkward. (Something something real high school nowaypablo) Anyway, that got me thinking about all the things I miss about the nebulous concept that is "my old life". I miss how carefree everything seemed back in preschool. I miss the focus and incredible sense of fulfillment of working full-time for 2 weeks on a Shakespeare play (summer camp). I miss (for lack of a better term) the brotherhood that arose at that camp. I miss having someone to confide in.
I want to know what you guys miss. What do you wish you still had? What do you stay up late thinking of? Why do you miss it? Do you really miss it, or just your idealized memory of it? Go ahead. Let's be nostalgic together.
I miss my daughter. She is visiting my parents for 2 weeks and that's just way too long. I miss my band I miss my friends and family I miss John Lennon and George Harrison I miss my dog Hemingway. I miss birthdays being something to be excited about. I miss Rollerama I miss playing tennis at night I miss breakdancing I miss Montana I miss mixed tapes I miss the sound the VCR made when you loaded/ejected a tape I miss not having actual responsibilities I miss acting I miss crushes I miss Elliott Smith I miss Kurt Cobain I miss Jeff Buckley I miss my grandma Rameriz's tamales I miss my Oma's fresh baked bread I miss being 165 pounds I miss road head I miss catholic school I miss smoking pot I miss spring breaks I miss it all... but everything I miss pales in comparison with everything I'm excited for.
edit: Sorry about the breakup pal. -Never easy.
Oh man, I was just thinking of roller rinks and how they're not really "a thing" anymore. While it sounds lame and old, I went through puberty in our roller rink and just today I was thinking about this one particular woman who was just an absolute vision when we were 14 and on skates. I saw her at a Wal-Mart not too long ago and I guess it's not a shock, but she looked rough. Like, a couple of kids and still partying hard kind of rough. What a weird thing for archaeologists of the future to find though. "Apparently, people skated around in a circle and listened to shitty dance/disco music while intermittently eating pizza. The exact purpose of this activity remains unknown, but it's likely that coitus was somehow on the mind."
So...breakdancing? You once were a break dancer? A lot of those you can still make happen! My friends and I make mix tapes every so often. You got a laugh out of me with the road head thing. OH! I've been meaning to ask you something (unrelated to road head). PM incoming.
When I was 7 I took breakdancing lessons. I have never actively been a "breakdancer" per se, but some of the moves that I learned have stayed with me for life. I break them out at weddings etc. We had the Hubski mix cd exchange -that was pretty cool. I'd do it again, but I'm way too exhausted to spearhead it. Anyone reading this that is interested, go for it.
Speed, mostly. Thinking and acting sharply and quickly and being afraid of nothing. I don't miss the scattered delirium and jaw-grinding insanity, but still, it's tempting when I have a hard day. Youth and a body that didn't need chemical assistance to be okay. Some of y'all will laugh at me for saying this at 25 but there's more consequences for me than most people. The freedom that came with not needing to take a set of temperature-controlled pills twice day was actually pretty huge. I could essentially live outdoors but now I need a fridge which needs electricity and that means rent and bills which means a job.
Word to the wise: Miss things you can revisit. Cherish the memories of the things you can't. This is why I miss the migas at the Portage Bay Cafe, the old growth cedars of Shadow of Sentinels, and the view of a sunset over Bellingham Bay. But I do not miss bouncing the floorboards at a club that no longer exists, the aching, impotent potential of 23 years old or the girl in Portland that just didn't work out. TNG is right. The more you focus on that which is gone, the more you blind yourself to that which remains. Mourn, grieve, wallow and move on.
I miss having summer feel like it lasts forever: every summer in elementary school. I have this vague sense that I wasted those summers, like if I'd known all that I know now, I would have spent those summers hacking and playing music and growing as a person so that by now, I'd have an infinitely higher platform to grow off of. I don't remember what I did during those summers anyway, so I wish I'd spent them more wisely. But it is what it is. More regret than nostalgia, huh? I find that when I think about the past, regret fills me more readily than nostalgia, so I'm probably better off just letting go of the past. I find it more productive to hope and look forward to the present moment.
Though I miss things, I try my best not to regret anything even if I have done some regrettable things in the past. As for your not-girlfriend, I have a weird relationship with a girl going on ten years. Together? Sparks that would start forest fires, but then inevitably, one of us moves away and hurts the other person. The best one was when we made up and then I told her I was moving to a different continent. But, she got me back. Anyway, I miss her sometimes but I don't think I should. I miss my close friends who are now scattered around the world. I miss being that kid who gets told that I have my whole future ahead of me and I sometimes miss being that guy who would have a lot of late night adventures that are shitty, but turn into good stories, except not really. i guess I try not to miss things because I find that holding on to things doesn't help me in my life as it is right now and I really want to and am trying hard to move toward building a life where I miss people and things that will miss me back.
I miss my ex, we were best friends and now we haven't talked in 3 months (we're no contact) and I miss when the relationship when it was good. I miss being in a relationship, the intimacy and having someone who loves me. I miss my old house, my family moved in April; we'd lived there for 15 years. I miss my best friend who drifted away, changed and stopped talking to me. I miss being a kid and the things I won't be able to experience again. I miss living with my friends at University, it's not the same living at home. I miss my Grandpa, he's the first person close to me who I've ever lost.
This is going to sound really shallow in comparison to everyone else, but I miss my long hair so much. I made a destructive decision in a depressive fit a couple weeks ago, deciding to chop it all off and give myself a male cut. My excuse is that it would help my chances with the job hunt, but I know that's just a lie to make me feel better about it. The last time this happened I always wore hats and beanies and didn't stop until it grew back. Here is a picture from a year ago. It's hard to look at sometimes, but I think it's the best picture of me that currently exists, haha. I know it will grow back. I've got a lot to work on in the meantime, and I definitely have the time for it now. I'll look even better by then.
This reminds me. I also miss having long hair sometimes. I used to have 2 feet of hair. I don't miss accidentally lighting it on fire while smoking or pulling hairs out of my throat on waking up, or cleaning up shed hair, but what I do miss is having someone scratch my head. When I had long hair, I found that girls would look for any excuse to play with it and that meant getting my head scratched. Head scratches feels great under short-haired circumstances, but long hair has a way of pulling on the scalp that makes head scratches so fucking great. Yeah, I totally miss that. Anyway, I empathize with the urge to chop it all off and feeling shitty about having done it. From what I understand, iron and protein make for lustrous hair and if growing it out is a priority for you, you might check out dietary stuff to encourage good hair growth and to keep your scalp healthy. If nothing else, having a great head of hair is a fantastic thing to donate. Or profit from.
That is good to know, thank you for sharing. I've been meaning to make some dietary changes anyway. I'll research what I can do to encourage a more healthy growth. Mine has always been very unmanageable and frizzy, much to my chagrin.
Condition. A few ml of lipids will make anyone's hair smooth, even if it's been bleached to straw. Pour a tiny bit of olive oil into your palms, just enough to coat your hands lightly when you rub it around. Run your hands through your hair until they feel mostly dry, repeat if needed. Don't overdo it or you'll look like a greaser. Combs are helpful but not necessary.
I'm going to keep this short and to two related things. I miss my dad. I'm always going to miss my dad, and I think I'm going to miss him more and more the older I get. The pain numbs but it's replaced with more thoughts of "if only he was here right now". I miss not feeling like there's so much I could have and should have done when there was time. I'm starting to miss bowling. Between lack of my dad supporting me and pushing me, a year of what was equivalent to D-1 bowling (it is for women's but not men's, despite bowling in the same tournaments...yay Title IX) and all the politics associated with that, and getting frustrated by the general attitude surrounding the sport at every level I got burned out. But I'm starting to recover.
I try my best not to miss things as they generally fall into one of two camps. The first is that they're gone forever and in no-way redeemable, and the second is that they're attainable again through enough time, hard work or dedication. The former is a pointless state malaise as it's past and gone; there's little point in dispiriting yourself over the inalterable. The latter is not something to feel loss over, but an opportunity for new goals and growth in your life. Then again, maybe I just haven't done enough worth missing.
I miss my girlfriend; she's in Barcelona doing an internship, and I'm here in Ireland teaching English. But we're doing the Camino de Santiago together in October, so there's that.
I miss the youthful, unadulterated normalcy of childhood. Even though I'm so much better than I was a year ago, and that was so much better than two years ago, I still don't really remember how it feels to be "neutral", or on the positive side of it. Of course, when I play music, when I perform I have moments of true joy, but I think I would give it away if I could wake up in the morning and feel "normal" or "pretty good". In Kleinbl00's vein, I cherish the weeks I spent in a cabin in Killarney, ON. as well as the weeks spent in deep musical study at the Orford Arts Academy in Quebec
I miss pulling all nighters before work drinking coffee and working on my own personal projects. I haven't done that in a year now.