Nostalgic for Now
I have a strange problem. I end up missing the moments as they unfold. In real-time.
You know, those moments when the mountains are kissing the clouds in the backdrop while I sit with a book in my hand just as I had always imagined. And yet, deep down, I’m wishing for it like it never happened.
Or when I’m finally having that long overdue, heartfelt conversation with an old friend — and I find myself missing it, even while it’s happening. I’ve had many such moments.
Nostalgic for now.
Longing for the very moment I’m living.
Even as I’m sitting next to my newborn, while he’s curled up in bed, squirming now and then, and smiling like he knows something I don’t, I feel it. That quiet ache. Sand slipping through my hand. I miss him while I hold him. I miss his innocent fingers wrapped around mine, while his warmth still rests against my skin. I miss the weight of his head on my chest, even as it’s resting there. It’s a strange kind of grief, the kind that doesn’t wait for loss, but lives quietly in the realisation that something so beautiful is already slipping away.
The other day, I was going through our old photo album. Quite the kid I was. Wide-eyed, curious, joyful.
We remember very little from the first four years of life. So obviously, I have no memory of those early days. But I realise now: what I forgot, my parents remembered. And maybe that’s what makes those photos so special. They’re not just proof that I existed. They’re proof that my family did, too, in full presence.
There’s one picture of me at a park, standing in front of some giant mascot — possibly a tiger. I look completely awestruck. I have no recollection of it. But I’m sure I was all in, fully consumed by its magic. And my parents were consumed by me. Those summers felt endless. We played outside till the streetlights came on. The sun didn’t drain us. It kissed our skin, and we didn’t flinch.
Now, even weekends carry a shadow. Every Saturday begins with a faint ache. It means Monday is lurking right around the corner. And there I am again, already missing what hasn’t even ended.
Perhaps a significant portion of it has to do with our screens. Somewhere along the way, we stopped simply being in the moment and instead became utterly desperate to capture it. To freeze it, store it, and archive it for later. When something so beautiful unfolds, there’s this uncontrollable itch in my fingers to pick up my phone, as if saving the memory for later will make it last longer.
Today, the fear of losing out on these precious memories comes with a safety net. We have storage. We have cloud backups. We have reels, albums, and shared folders. It’s almost as if we’re living our lives as spectators. Watching our own moments unfold through the lens.
Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress quite struck me when I was a teenager. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve realised that in practice, Carpe Diem is much harder to pull off. The idea of “seizing the day” hasn’t disappeared… it’s twisted. And while we’ve stayed loyal to the concept, the way we now seize our moments often feels like the most depressing version of it.
In our desperation to fill our phones with memories, we’ve forgotten to make space for the ones that actually live within us.
We’re recording everything,
yet remembering nothing.
Watching our lives unfold from behind a screen,
like quiet observers of our own joy.
And somewhere in all that capturing,
We’ve forgotten how to simply live it.
