There are events in life significant enough to give
pause. The day you leave home for university. Your very first kiss with another
human. That moment you look into the eyes of your newborn son and...
The optimism alert has just started flashing on my
desktop. That opening really is more
suitable for BT internet adverts or group therapy. I’ll try again, and try to
stick to my hackneyed blend of self-deprecation and unnecessary profanity.
Ahem. There are events in life significant enough to
give pause. The day you discover masturbation. Your very first kiss with a
picture of Baby Spice torn from Smash
Hits magazine. That moment when the itching becomes so unbearable you
simply have to let a doctor see that
rash.
As the very existence of this blog testifies, I am
something of a sucker for nostalgia. Although I in particular am bad for it,
everyone suffers from nostalgia of one sort or another. This most commonly
manifests itself as perceived sentimental value; a particular pricelessness
assigned to objects in our life that were present at a particular event,
perhaps, or gifted by a particular person. More often than not it’s an item
that has long outlived its purpose, or that never really had one in the first place.
This is why our homes are full of bedraggled toys belonging to long-ago run
over cats, tins bearing pictures of monarchs before they became national
laughing stocks, or pictures of friends we no longer see or speak to because
they slept with your wife or ran over your cat.
My most heinous crime of sentimentality was doggedly
dragging around a security blanket until the age of six or so like a wannabe
Linus from Peanuts. It used to be a
re-useable nappy. In other words, I felt misplaced yet fervent kinship for
something I used to regularly and profusely defecate into. And, on special
occasions, vomit on.
As I’ve grown older (and installed my desktop
optimism alarm) I’ve made an effort to do away with sentimentality. Not only do
you accumulate a lot of junk; for someone such as myself it’s downright
unhealthy.
This weekend in the old familial home we got new
furniture to replace the pair of armchairs we’ve had since I was nine. Now, my
first thought was that I was desperately sad about this. They’ve been there for
so many significant moments of my life.
Then it occurred to me that the chairs, although
still remarkably comfortable, have been altogether incidental in my life.
Mostly I sat on my own every night after school and ate any food I could get my
hands on until my ballooning weight collapsed the centre of the chair. A broken
spring tore a hole in the carpet underneath. The chairs have become nothing but
arbitrary recipients of nostalgia that, in my head, needs such personification
to remain keen and close. And, much as it doesn’t stop me, trying to keep an
iron grip on the past is futile.
