Nostalgia

Around my room, pegged up on loops of twine, or blue tacked to my mirror, or in a gift bag under my desk, I have physical encapsulations of my life.
Photos, tickets, postcards, letters.
The flittering memories that dance around my mind as I try to focus are engrained in still moments of the past.
Fingering through these makes me nostalgic and empty.
It makes me long for a glorified time that never existed in the pure form it is presented.
I wish for a time that I spent wishing for another time. It's messy.
Curled on the edge of my bed, under a quilt with melancholy music playing in my ears, I am enchanted by the photos that I have framed on my wall.
An image of my friend and I hugging around a birthday cake, bikinis in the north sea, watermelon on a Nicoise balcony, suited and booted before prom, idyllic summer fields and so many of friends and smiles.
And while every pixel is cherished and prized, they make me sad.
The ease and belonging feels arduous and messy and there are faces that belong to personalities I no longer know. Pictures where I have bossily dragged my best pals to the mirror, clad in our black dresses, to take what will be one of my most treasured possessions.
Today, these images feel impossible, complicated with our drifting lives.
I look at their familiar faces and miss the laughter and fun before A-levels and opinions and fears invaded.
A faded image sitting around a camp fire, in an assortment of patterned pyjama items, blankets and scarves, empty pots and pans discarded on the grass. The serene comfort I remember feeling makes me blue, such events become almost impossible to organise as our lives become busier and we move on.
God, I miss them.
They are captured in their purest, happiest forms, rose tinted and deceitfully beautiful. And even if I coerced the participator to pose with me (which I have a habit of doing), it doesn't show.
They are false tickets of the past.
And while I know these memories will be replaced with new ones, new faces will appear and new stories will be told, I can't help but feel the dilution of an integral part of me. Faces that have shared tears and firsts and fears and laughs and memories and have been my absolute insurance for the most formative years are fading and soon I'm going to have to go this journey alone.

It is a dark autumn night and I have been working hard and stressing hard and while such circumstances are prone to tears, I can't help but feel sad about my longing to be crossing a golden field to watch the sun set or dancing in someones living room or curled up watching a movie and feeling at home around the people I have grown up with.