Nostalgia

So I'm 364 days away from being in my thirties. I feel like I can hear the second hand of my biological clock ticking but that is most definitely a subject for another blog. I have noticed however that as much as I try to look forward and write about things that I am going to do I can't help but write and think about the past and I think I know why.

The world is in the midst of an epidemic of epic proportions. An epidemic called nostalgia.

I am almost certain in history there has never been a group of young adults who look back on their childhood and teenage years so much. This theory has been cemented by a new app I downloaded this week called timehop. Now this app delves into your social media history and reminds you of things you did virtually on this day in previous years. I think it's brilliant. I also think it's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Obviously it's been my birthday this week so this week my timehop has mainly been about that and pictures of people I we have celebrated with over the last few years which has been lovely. There was a particularly excellent picture of me and my husband's sister from six years ago both in fancy dress and looking fresh faced and youthful. There was another particularly lovely picture of me and the twin with our hair in bendy rollers which made me chortle a lot.

The other thing about this time of year is how political it can be. The next UK General Election is on our 30^th birthday and previous general elections have been around the same time of year. I have always been a fairly political animal and this has bled into my social media activity. So, it turns out looking back at it that I am a massive dick.

This sort of stuff encourages short term nostalgia and I don't think that can ever be a good thing. How can you ever be prepared to look forward if you are too busy obsessing over what happened such a sort time ago?

I know I think about the past a lot and I wish I thought about the bigger things rather than the stupid inconsequential stuff but I don't. I dwell on the past rather than learn from it and move on. Which is stupid. Just stupid.

I do love a bit of group nostalgia though. Most of this relates to money. The “how much?!?” exclamation happens all too frequently in my existence and is often followed up by “you can't even get a penny sweet for less than two pence any more!”

I love being nostalgic about the television. We often talk about things we watched as kids. I can remember (nostalgia in a nostalgia blog – so meta) we were talking about the Crystal maze at work and one of the girls there had never heard of it or Richard O'Brien. The level of outrage was palpable.

Also there's been a programme on recently called The Big Reunion which has brought pop bands back together that split up in the nineties or noughties and it has been massive. I've adored it but it's not like it's been an eternity since the groups first performed. An ABBA reunion would have qualified as a big reunion, I'm not sure bringing the likes of Atomic Kitten and A1 back together holds the same sort of gravitas. Just to be clear I love Atomic Kitten and A1. I also don't know whether this programme says more about nostalgia or about the state of the pop music industry today but I'm not about to debate that...

It is my plan to stop thinking so wistfully about the short past and try to spend more of my energy thinking about the Now. I've been trying to think about how I can achieve this and I just don't know. My hope is that as you age you forget more stuff so it becomes more difficult to be nostalgic about things that you can't remember.

One can only hope.

Until next time.