Nostalgia

Nostalgia-Riko Maekawa

Nostalgia

Violet Garney

Nostalgia.

It comes at night, with the hum of crickets and the flickering of the obnoxiously bright streetlights for an insignificantly small neighborhood. It comes when you visit the small town you grew up in, which you swore you’d never miss. Your parents despised it, and your teachers tolerated it, only for the paycheck and the promise of spring break, which was just around the corner. 

But somehow you loved it. The hot summer days, the high schoolers drinking on the muddy, damp trails, the kids whose voices echoed through your tiny neighborhood. And it all fit into that small yellow backpack that you brought everywhere. It fit nearly nothing, but that was the point. You didn’t need to fill it with anything, maybe except for your lunch box and a notebook or two. It didn’t have the stress of carrying around load after load every day. 

That backpack didn’t feel the weight of the world. It didn’t know about the kids drinking themselves to death just across the street. And it didn’t seem to have aged 20 years when it’s only been three. It was small, light, and unburdened.

Sometimes, you had to hold your friend’s bright red jacket because they forgot the passcode to their locker. You didn’t mind. 

They didn’t want anything from you. You could run around like a fool during your 25-minute recess, and they’d only smile and laugh when you asked them to tie your shoe. When it was time to go home, you made sure to pick up your small, light, yellow backpack. It was easy to carry, your back never ached, your knees never caved in, and your mind was strong. You had no load to carry because your backpack was always empty. 

Now your backpack carries the weight of your mind. 

It races when a test creeps up on you, when you have to answer a question in class, and when your so-called friends seem to avoid you.

It’s loud, but your head blocks it out. After a few years, your mind can make anything quiet. It just puts it in your much larger backpack, because now you need to carry much more.

It’s not just a lunchbox anymore; it needs to fit your English novel—what was it called again? Oh, right, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” a book following the themes of the “destructive nature of prejudice and racial injustice,” as your English teacher would say. But you’re still six chapters behind, so you have no idea how he came to that conclusion. 

Next are your binders, ripped and fraying because you shove your papers into them just to get out of class faster, to catch up to your friends who seem to keep walking and walking away. 

Your backpack also holds your mind now, not an ideal situation, but it’s safer there than anywhere else. And tucked inside is a bright red jacket. Sometimes your friend would shove that bright red jacket into your hands, laughing. You didn’t mind carrying it, at least that’s what you told yourself.

But you do, because now she only comes to you when she needs to put her red jacket in your backpack. 

And still you say, “I don’t mind.” You tell yourself you can carry the heavy load. You hate it. 

Years pass, and the weight has changed shape. Your mind no longer races, and stress doesn’t fill your gut. Your mind has been made quiet. Only focused on that red jacket. It’s not in your backpack anymore. It’s probably still hanging on her bedroom hook. As if she would come back and retrieve it, but she won’t; it will stay and live there forever. 

How I wish that red jacket were still in my backpack. 

Back then, a small backpack held nothing but a lunch box and notebooks. You didn’t know it would one day hold someone’s pain, someone’s entire world.

“I really don’t mind,” you would tell her with a smile, as you stuffed her red jacket into your already full backpack. You wish you knew she had such a heavy load in her backpack. Maybe then the red jacket wouldn’t feel so heavy. 

Your backpack is still heavy, but it’s lighter now. It took time: you’re not sure how long, but you can carry it now. 

You go to your job every day in one of those large office buildings that you would always pass on the way to school when you were little. You smile at your friends, even strangers, and they all stare. You stand out with your large yellow backpack; you always choose yellow. Even though it dirtied fast, it was always your favorite; it was bright like the sun and the color you painted your childhood bedroom. 

In it sat a red jacket. Not hers–it’s newer, brighter–but it’s enough. It brings you a strange kind of comfort, that familiar ache of nostalgia.  It reminded you of the little town back home, the one you swore you hated, and the truth. The fact that everyone around you carries their own backpack, heavy in ways you can’t see. No longer the small ones with cute unicorns and colorful zippers.

It’s the day before school, but not school for you. You need to get him a few school supplies and a backpack. It’s his first day of kindergarten. He picked out a small, bright red backpack. You smile, you know eventually he’ll need a new, bigger backpack, but for now it’s perfect. You help him slide on his bright red jacket, and you strap the backpack around his small arms, making sure to tighten it so it won’t fall. 

It will be best that way, since he’ll be carrying it for a while. It then starts to slip down his shoulders, and he almost drops it on his first attempt, but you help him lift it.

“Don’t worry,” you say, patting his head, “I’ll help you carry it”.           

At school, you watch all the small kids walk into the building; each one with a different backpack—all with different designs and colors. You watch him walk ahead into the building, bouncing with every step, with his small red backpack, waving goodbye. And for the first time in years, the weight on your shoulders doesn’t feel so heavy.

Nostalgia.

You see yourself in him. You see yourself walking into school, afraid. You just rode the bus to school for the first time since summer break, with your yellow backpack strapped to your back loosely, as no one had tightened it for you, and no one was there to wave you goodbye. But your friend waits for you, she’s at the front of the school waving her hands rapidly with a bright red jacket on, the one with the black buttons, two sizes too big. 

Everyone carries something heavy. Sometimes the best thing you can do is help them hold it for a while. Don’t be afraid to help someone carry their load, even if it’s only a single notebook, binder, or red jacket.