A Little Nostalgia on a Winter's Day...

I'm not typically prone to nostalgia - I try to focus on the present. I enjoy thinking about the past, reminiscing, but I don't long to go backwards. However, I recognize that my perspective and this tendency to look back continues to increase as I get older. It's a strange thing, this whole business of aging. I notice the passing of time so acutely now. Each passing of a week, a month, a season. The start of another school year, another Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Then the long, cold, dreary January. 

I've never truly felt the optimism of January and the start of the new year. It does feel clean and simple and quiet, especially after the excesses of December; but it also feels like a bit of a let-down, and I'm never quite sure what to do with myself. I exercise, eat healthy, get outside as much as possible, and wait for it to end. 

This feeling has extended long into February this year. Possibly because we typically take a vacation in February, and we didn't take one this year. And so my waiting continues. It's been another weird winter in New England, without a lot of snow to entertain us and keep us outside. We did get some skiing in over the weekend, and I was reminded how much it improves my outlook on winter. Skiing and yoga and good books. 

Work has been good. Challenging and interesting and forcing me to think about the things I want to focus on. I am starting a new project, and as I've discussed at length before, I am not comfortable with change. Consulting is a strange business for someone who readily admits that, but I have made a tentative peace with being uncomfortable. The accomplishments and successes along the way motivate me, as does the opportunity to surround myself with smart and ambitious and interesting people. 

And so I work, and read, and do my yoga, and my mind wanders to previous winters, especially as I think about my boys and our experiences together. 

Nostalgia creeps in most, I think, when life is quiet.