11. Nostalgia

Sometimes I wish you could replay life, but despite my good memory of people, elements, and sounds, the moment won't ever be recreated. Too bad, because there were some nights that were just so good. Late nights in Farley or the Alpine House, when we college students could stay up late and suffer minimal consequences. We could spend the entire day together, then again the next day.

I walked into my living room a couple hours ago to find a number of students jamming. The live music is pleasant, the harmonies so good, but at the same time, I feel like I'm watching other people create these memories for their own lives. These are the nights they will look back on: jamming after large group, finding chords and playing songs as they please. Sometimes worship songs, sometimes goofing off to old school hits. Sometimes making up things that just sound good: Jesse says he has no idea what he's playing, but his guitar picking is right along with Garrett's piano chords.

I'm sitting right here, and it's relaxing and good. But nostalgia is what it triggers: memories of friends near and far, nights when I distinctly remember being so glad to be alive, so grateful to know the people around me. But now they're miles and miles away, further from the living rooms we loved in Stockton but closer to who God has made us to be.

Not that I don't like where I am now, but how do you move to different life stages? How do you simultaneously recognize what was good but also let it go to fully love the next chapter? Will it always sadden you that that specific combination of people at that night in that place with that music will never be recreated?