Now that I have my own place, everything in my apartment is mine. (Go figure the logic there!) One morning I decided to go through all my photo albums from high school and college (that I have with me at least), and I started remember how happy I was in college and how much fun we would have. I tried to pick out some of my favorites and then posted them on Facebook. I had a mixed response from those who were tagged in the photos and won't post any here, but they were fun!
Last night I drove almost two hours to hear a talk by a scientist who is really well known and works on a compound with which I also work. I have been dying to see this man talk. I gave myself plenty of time to get there because I had to drive through two cities around rush hour. I got to the college campus almost an hour early, called a couple of people (who did not answer) and wandered around the campus. This made me miss college even more than the pictures I had been looking through last week. Campus was pretty quiet, there were some people around, and it is fall, which I love. I noisily walked through my first pile of dry leaves for the season(!), because really why would you try to walk through dry leaves quietly? You have to scuff your feet right through and make that dry leaves noise! I loved the campus, but I don't know if it's for nostalgic reasons or because I could really see myself there when I start looking for jobs.
Then I heard the man talk and got all excited about my work, which is good to keep me motivated. I got excited about looking for and getting a post-doc. I got all nervous, but introduced myself and he knew of my publication!! (Mostly because the company that makes the compound we work with, does a really good job down-playing any publications about the compound AS SOON AS they are published, and he keeps track of that. Whatever.) This story was so much better in my head, but my question is - is there a word like "nostalgia" but for the present? Like fondly thinking about the present? Like "fondly thinking about the present"? Because while I was walking around being nostalgic on a campus I had never visited, I started being nostalgic for the present and going to the great talk and being outside in the fall air walking through the crunchy leaves...
5 comments:
Perhaps optimistic fits or maybe just content or possibly even happy. Glad you are doing well and getting some recognition :)
That is awesome. Is this someone with whom you could do a post-doc?
And I have no idea what word to look for, but happily living in the moment captures a small part of it. Partly, you are looking toward the future though, which is definitely a sort of optimism.
i think it's just called happiness. it's precisely what we all wish for, i think. to be living in the moment and loving it. i'm happy for you :)
It sounds like you were feeling reflective and content? It reminds me of some essays I was reading by a writer named Andre Aciman. He wrote about how an experience in the present can be colored by the way one thinks one might look back on the experience, as well as through comparisons to similar experiences in the past. So, maybe wandering around through the fallen leaves on a quiet campus both evokes memories of happy times in college and expectation and excitement for the future?
Yes.. nostalgic for the moment = happiness... something awesome!
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