A life lived longer.

If the sum of my experiences will, at the end of my life be calculated to say how happy I was, I wonder if the average will be high than if it were calculated now. I have long held the concept of nostalgia in disdain, quite confident that the idea that any part of one’s life was the ‘best‘ could only bring sorrow. I am sure that I am right, but nostalgia now seems not so easy to avoid.

Some years ago, I stayed the summer of my college’s campus, and had a birthday party with my friends. As it was being set up, I commented to my then girlfriend, against my own beliefs, that this would probably be the best birthday of my life. Now those friends are gone and scattered, and that partner is nowhere to be found. None of those people were exceptional, but the circumstances were. A life lived in the present is a life best lived, but the past must be reckoned. I supposed I should be joyous that I had such a good night, that the people whom I loved seemed to know me so well on that day, and I am. But now I find myself with so much more to think fondly of in the past, and in that past there is much that I miss.

It is such, that I cannot help but wonder if this pattern will only continue. Will I one day come across a reference to starting one’s first job, and feel an unwanted pang of sadness. It seems I will only have to come and see, and try my best to live a life with things that I will one day miss.