Easily Excitable

I don’t know if you’ve seen Inside Out 2 yet. I just watched it for the first time a couple days ago.

Now, I’m not sure it’s better than the first movie, but I do believe that this series as a whole is the height of Pixar creativity. 

The whole premise is the role emotions play in our viewing and handling the outside world, and the emotions themselves are cartoon characters. 

One of the scenes in Inside Out 2 features a grandma-esque figure. Her name? 

Nostalgia. 

Another character, Anxiety, proceeds to push Nostalgia out, saying that it’s too early for her to come into the picture. At 12 years old, the “host” of the emotions is too young for that feeling. 

Nostalgia, Anxiety explains, is reserved for the later years and college friends’ weddings. 

Now, that is some truth right there. 

There is something about the end of a school year that always, without fail, makes me feel nostalgic. 

I don’t know if it’s the warmer weather, the impending graduation, or just the end of another year with kids. 

But nostalgia-  that combination of sadness, warm fuzzies, and longing for the past- is a powerful thing.

I kind of love it. 

I’ve thought about nostalgia and remembering a lot this week.

Have you ever thought about just how odd memories are? 

It’s the mind’s version of home videos. God was ahead of the camcorder. 

Memories amaze me: that the brain can conjure up little movies for us based on a smell, a taste, or a picture. 

Just one can spark a home video. 

Now, surely, there are negatives to that. But, for the most part (and I am blessed when I say this), the memories I get taken back to are positive ones. 

So, once I get all nostalgic,

I’ll start looking back and really considering the different parts of my life. I’ll look through pictures and roll back the footage a little bit mentally. 

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to:

When you take a far off look at some of the stages of our lives, life really is quite absurd. 

Even (and especially?) the mundane is extraordinary. 

One I think about often? College. 

In practice, it seemed natural. But in truth? 

College is the most wackadoodle idea there is. 

You graduate from high school. 

Then, while you are at your dumbest, with the least amount of maturity and a severely underdeveloped frontal lobe, you move away. 

You go to a land of no adults, surrounded entirely by other teenagers who have the same amount of sense you have.

That is to say, none. 

How does anyone survive? 

But what a time we had! 

• I lived right down the hallway from my best friends. (Or at least in the same apartment complex)
• The only adults I saw were my teachers or my bosses. 
• Except for class (and some part-time shifts), I had unlimited free time. 
• I could go to the pool any day, all day.
• The food I ate didn’t inflame my joints.

All this in a city of young, spry teens and twenties? 

In theory, it might just be the worst idea ever. 

Another fun, almost unreal stage of life was when I lived in town.  

Post-college and post-living-in-my-parents’-home, Aubri and I rented a little green house in town from a local real estate agent. 

Lana lived a couple blocks over, and her house had a pool. 

It was in 2020, so naturally, there was the lockdown in place. Every bit of normal life seemed to freeze. 

In July, we had a small party (4 people-ish?? Social distancing??) at our house for Lana and closed the blinds because we didn’t want to get reported or in trouble. 

That summer and the one after, the whole crew would get together, and we’d go over to swim at Lan’s house. 

She and I would also walk in the mornings during the summertime before she had to go to work. 

Adulting and single with some cash flow and living in the same city as my friends? Those were good times. 

Another fun journey to reminisce on is the one that ended with marriage

June will make five years of knowing Trey Kotara. 

During 2020, I was on a couple of online dating profiles because, really, in a pandemic, what else do you do? 

Aubri and I were perched on the countertop in our rental house, talking on the phone with Hayle one night, and the two of them (was it mainly Hayle??) convinced me to give it a try. 

I made the profiles, cycled on and off it a time or two, and had a couple of dates.

But, this one Trey guy kept popping up though. 

He had long hair. I wasn’t sure about the ambiance. 

He’d popped up several times on my profile. I decided to throw a Hail Mary and comment on his account. 

This one Trey just so happened to be Trey Kotara. 

One disastrous FaceTime and some texting back and forth (specifically, I remember one time while I was at one of Zayden’s baseball games. Trey was at the lake with his family) led into the best first date I’ve ever had. 

I was still convinced it wouldn’t work out. 

And yet, Trey stayed the course. I didn’t get serious about things until September. 

Looking back at it now, what makes it so insane is this: 

I had no idea in those first few months that this was it: that this person, this situation, would be the one, God willing, I will spend a long, happy life with. 

Our first six months together was a comedy of errors. 

We made it through, obviously, and the mistakes and awkward moments make for great stories now. 

To have seen my face, though, if I could tell me 5 years ago that the long-haired motorcycle guy would be the one I’d marry.

None of these moments felt all that special at the time. 

Were they fun? Absolutely.

Did I think how grateful I was for my people and my life? I’m sure I did. 

But I’m lucky that, in those moments, I wasn’t capable of considering the fact that, one day, I would look back on them and feel nostalgia. 

I’m pretty simple: I just enjoy the moment at hand. 

Those seemingly normal moments are the ones that stick out to me as some of my favorite times with my favorite people.

Enjoying life, even at its most mundane, is the closest we get to true magic.

I think about where I am in life right now.

I know one day I will look at these moments, and I’ll miss them. 

One day I won’t be a teacher anymore: I’ll miss roasting the kids and getting roasted in return. 

One day kids will come along: I’ll miss it being just Trey and me. 

One day Boone will be white-faced in age: I’ll miss the days of chasing after him, screaming, “STOP!”

One day, my body won’t move the same way: I’ll miss working out. 

One day, I’ll miss a lot. But on that day, there will still be so much to appreciate and give thanks for. 

But I think that one of the most important things we can do is enjoy- in the moment- the time God gives us. 

While I do love memories, I definitely don’t believe in living in them: 

It’s a nice place to look, but a terrible place to live. 

And I do believe that all of us are likely to look back with rose-colored glasses: I know I can be prone to that. 

The truth is that every part of life has the hard and the easy: the difference-maker is the perspective we have on the given part.

I’m an optimist: I believe that life consistently gets better with every stage, even as it does become more complex and more difficult. 

I believe that with every fiber of my being, even in those uncomfortable stages. 

But at the same time, I alsoI know what it is and how it feels to miss aspects or people who aren’t a part of the current life season I’m in. 

And in those moments in particular, I’m grateful for the act of remembering. 

God is gracious to us in giving us memories. 

That, along with the perspective to place and appreciate those memories is a detail I would have never thought up. 

Nice job, God. And thank You!