When Nostalgia Morphs into Regret
This is for you if you are meeting versions of yourself you're not sure you can trust yet
Before sharing this personal post, here’s a reminder that The Lent Collection will be available next week. It is the same Collection as last year and Day 1 starts on Ash Wednesday. If you missed this Collection last spring, we will send a discount code to paid subscribers on Monday February 16 so you can get it for 25% off. If you join as a paid subscriber today, you’ll be included in the email we send Monday with the code. Stay tuned!
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
—Joseph Campbell
Just beneath the surface of me, I’m aware of a great grief and, simultaneously, a great joy. They live together on the other side of glass, a see-through mirror reflecting my inner life rather than my face.
Like many women in their (very) late 40s, I’ve successfully metabolized Brené Brown’s teaching about selective numbing: that when we numb the grief, pain, and losses of life we also numb the joy, gratitude, and happiness.1 In other words, we cannot selectively numb our emotions. I know this, which is why I share with some embarrassment that lately I’ve subconsciously decided that avoiding the joy is worth it if it means I don’t have to hold the grief.
This is not the way. It’s not how I want to live or move through the world which is why it feels important to name it.
Writing has always been the breadcrumb trail leading straight to greater awareness and so here I am, showing up to the page for myself and maybe for you, too, if you can relate.
Spoiler Alert: Returning to ourselves is a lonely thing to do (thank you, Brandi Carlile, for that piercingly accurate lyric.)2
Maybe it started with the 2016 - 2026 meme where people shared what life looked like a decade ago compared to now. (It 100 percent did not start there, but that’s my most recent anchor so that’s where we’ll start for now.)
I shared a few photos on Instagram, a throwback to life when the kids were 10 and 12, when we were married for only 15 years, when John was still a full head taller than all of us, when there were so many things we didn’t know.
When I shared my images from 2016, I reflected that I don’t want to go back because we’ve worked too hard to get here, which is to say I’ve made peace with the fact that we can’t go back. But if I’m being fully honest, part of me would go back, if only to have more (different? better?) conversations with my pre-teens, to prepare them for the years to come, to let them know with my out loud voice how deeply and unconditionally they are loved and seen and wanted. Perhaps we could have avoided some of their teenage heartbreak. Perhaps not.
In December I launched Journal Club here on Substack3 and it’s been a life-giving addition to my year so far. Because of that, I’ve spoken more often about the high value I place on reflection and how incorporating this as a regular practice can help us make decisions with more confidence. Because I’ve been talking more about it, I’ve been practicing it more, too: looking back, remembering moments, rehearsing the past.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve noticed an unexpected glitch in the system.
Because of my current life stage, I have more time to engage in reflection. Combine that with the emotional reality of no longer having our kids live at home full time and I believe I’ve been experiencing the consequences of an over-emphasis on my personal past.
Now I find myself in that murky, sneaky, in-between place where nostalgia quietly morphs into regret.
Regret is a mountain with steep drop-offs and no guardrails. Careful where you step, or you could go tumbling down.
These are my notes from the canyon.
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