Sophia Conn

Nostalgia: The World's Most Prevalent Mental Illness

Nostalgia is a sickening, disgusting, soul-crushing experience that I would never wish on any human worthy of happiness -- yet it is something that seems hardwired into us the same way that trauma might be, or excitement. It is comforting, yet sinister, a reminder of our finite experience on this planet. It is intertwined with the five senses so beautifully, but so abruptly. The smell of the first Bath & Body Works fragrance your mom ever bought for you transports you to your mind's clips and scenes of your eighth grade math classroom, just before everything got weird, before you spent weeks inside. The melody to that old song that played on the car radio gets stuck in your head, until you remember the summer you spent camping with a little boombox sitting on a stump playing the 2010s pop radio station. You get tense when you see someone walking down the street wearing the same outfit your ex-boyfriend wore five years ago, or feel a warmth in your heart eating mom’s home-cooked meals that you haven't had in a while. Maybe when someone hugs you just like your grandma did, you feel a bit of emptiness accompanying the warm embrace.