Hi. My name is Steve and I’m a nostalgia-holic.

After my third year of teaching, I planned to spend the summer writing the great American novel, or at the very least…an American novel. The title was Nostalgic for the Present and it was about a man learning to quit wallowing in the past and appreciate living in the moment. Hmmm…I wonder who the main character was based on?

Well, after an honest attempt of about one hundred pages, the summer writing routine broke down. It was 1996 and I was distracted learning the Macarena, watching the Republican and Democratic conventions, and cheering on the first ever women’s Olympic soccer team. (How is it possible that the sports world gave us twelve incarnations of WrestleMania before the ladies were allowed to play soccer in the Olympics?)

While the book never made it to the shelves of Barnes & Noble, I always thought Nostalgic For the Present was a clever title and concept–the notion of loving the current moment so much you’re already homesick for it. Twenty years later, Australian pop star Sia used my title for the name of her world tour. (I’m guessing we’ll probably settle out of court for any copyright infringement.) I’ve thought about the plot of this book from time to time, but could never figure out out to author an ending. What life event would make the main character live so fully in the moment he already ached for the memory of it?

At 26, I was already acutely aware of my tendency as a nostalgia-holic. Just like food, wine, sex, slot machines, and the Internet are not bad in and of themselves, there is nothing inherently wrong with nostalgia. Some people, like myself, tend to overindulge in nostalgia to the point where it causes problems. I probably started using in college, hanging out in our dorm lounge talking about childhood cartoons and NFL players from the ’70s. If anyone asked, I was always like, “I can stop anytime.” But at as adult, I continued over-romanticizing the past, drinking in “more seemingly pleasant memories” as opposed to engaging fully in the present. I would spend entire weekends watching Behind the Music and Pop-Up Video marathons and reflecting upon my life at the time of those songs. And while there’s nothing wrong with remembering a time or place fondly, I’m prone to thoughts of “I loved that car” or “Food tasted better” or the trump card of all nostalgia “Life was just better then…”

Except for the fact that life wasn’t better. Like the beginning of this post, sometimes I fondly remember the summer of ’96–extended periods of writing broken up by trips to Caribou Coffee for iced cappuccinos. Teaching some classes at a fancy private school. There was disc golf, a weird ice-beer trend, and an amazing 4th of July trip to Chicago highlighted with deep-dish pizza, Spanish tapas, and a Cubs game. I could tell you all this, but it’s probably burying the lead.

I can’t remember if it’s in Nostalgic for the Present or not, but summer of ’96 is about ending a long-term relationship. Experiencing the horrible pain of realizing a relationship is not going to live up to its expectations, even though both parties were trying. Time after time, Michelle (named changed to protect the innocent) and I butted heads over the difference of who we were and who we wanted each other to be. The fireworks in Chicago were amazing, but the fights were far more explosive.

If I were a member of a nostalgia support group, I’m sure I would be taught that my selective memory has a tendency to cherry pick the best moments from a past experience. In addition to misremembering the past, wistful overindulging in the past also prevents one from looking towards the future. By the way, I think Nostalgia Anonymous meetings would be highly entertaining–everyone would sit around and talk about how great the previous meeting was.

Like an alcoholic walking into a bar, my addiction was recently tested. In an effort to clear some clutter, I took on the organization of the “piles” of digital photos building up in my personal cyberspace. I estimate that we’re currently storing in one format or another, at least 15,000 digital images of our life since Jenni and I have been married. Stashed on different computers, clouds, and sites, I’m sure there’s massive amounts of duplication and unnecessary photos. I almost prefer the overstuffed shoebox of reprints and photo negatives from the analog photo days. (Which of course I do–because it’s nostalgic.) Still, I venture down the rabbit hole of a decade and half of memories.

Looking at family photos can be a perfectly wholesome activity, but this addict it’s a springboard to overthink about the past. 130 photos from our honeymoon? Yes please! Jenni’s pregnancy/Ryan’s baby movie complete with Circle of Life on the soundtrack? Oh yeah! Halloween pictures from 2013? That’s the good stuff.

After I get my fix, I make a feeble attempt to organize the chaos. I transfer 6000 photos from one storage site to another, but where’s the order and hierarchy of those photos? The challenge isn’t not being able to save photos from Chase’s first birthday party, but having too many photos from Chase’s first birthday party. I have forty-seven distinct images representing the moment of Chase tearing into his first cupcake. Which one captures the exact emotional tenure of his development and the mood of his event? Maybe #18? Maybe #31? Then I think I should ask Jenni to go through these photos together and keep the ones we both want. Yeah, like we have all the time the world to sort through photos. Frustrated to be left with the same jumbled mess of images, it’s much easier to envelop myself in the sights, sounds, and smells of different eras of our family history.

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Looking at our family over fifteen years is powerful and evocative. The smiles on my boys’ faces years ago display their youth and innocence. I miss those human beings that are getting soaked in a neighbor’s sprinkler. Looking at vacation photos, I can feel how warm the water was in Ixtapa three years ago. And even scrolling through our camping trips (not my favorite), I can smell the campfire and feel the dampness of the woods. And just like most can stop at one glass of wine or merely reminiscing about nice family memories, injecting the photos into my system triggers something in me.

It feels good to remember and before I know it I’m thinking something stupid like, “Family life will never be as good as is was 2016–the boys were such good ages and we did such fun things.” I know–I have a problem. Even if it were true, it’s incredibly unproductive thinking. I have to make a conscious decision to not get stuck in the past.

I’ll never get where I want to go looking in the rear view mirror. About two years ago in the spring, I asked Jenni, “What would make for your ideal summer?” After some thought, she replied with a number of family experiences that would she considered “ideal.” Pretty soon, we posted three poster size calendar months on the wall and set out to fill it up with these things we wanted to do. And in all seriousness—not being too nostalgic–it was great summer. We got there by looking ahead and focusing on where we wanted to go. We still keep the family wall size calendar, but lately it’s become more reactive than proactive–a record of what we have to do instead of what we want to do. Sure, the schedule will dictate to us as the boys choose actives that take more time and dedication. Still, taking back the calendar is not a bad place to start with some more forward thinking.

In thinking about an appropriate balance between past, present, and future, the last scene in Stand By Me comes to mind. In it, the author character, initially lost in his childhood memories is snapped into transitioning into the present and focusing on his own son. For those of you familiar with the movie, you know it’s a complete and accurate remembering of the past (specifically his relationship with his father) that contributes to his actions.

I have no idea where the original Nostalgic for the Present manuscript is. Somewhere in a desktop graveyard there’s a Macintosh LC with a ClarisWorks 4.0 file holding my summer’s work. Now, almost twice as old as I was then (Yikes!), I realize that Nostalgic for the Present is a horrible concept. Why would anyone ever choose to be homesick for the present moment instead of embracing it to its fullest? Besides the outside distractions, I never finished the book because I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to end. I kept thinking the plot resolved with a momentous life event, like buying a house (I know a great REALTOR® if you need one) or birth of child. If that were the case, it would suggest that life thrusts perspective on the individual, instead of the individual gaining perspective within. I’m not sure what happened to the main character of my book, but I hope he gained that wisdom. Perhaps the book ends with him simply writing a blog post about what he’s learned about nostalgia over the past twenty plus years.