Nostalgia

That feeling when an old song, a familiar street, or a aroma that brings back so many memories, and the sweetly painful tug in your chest. Longing to be in someone’s arms again, knowing you’re not where you’re supposed to be, but at the same time, knowing you’ll never get another chance. This is not the devastating sadness that swallows you whole when brought up, but rather the dull ache that remains after accepting the fact.

That is nostalgia.

It used to be an old diagnosis to sailors and soldiers stationed in faraway lands, in unfamiliar seas, for the waves of sorrow that would  just gradually creep into them like a bad case of frostbite. Now, just another mundane term for a special kind of grief. It’s elegant, the pain that comes with it, and its all too easy to get used to that sensation, to let it be a part of you. One might even get addicted to it.

But then again, I can’t blame them. Every homesick traveller wants to sail back to familiar shores.

• Nostalgia
• sadness