Watching movies from the nineties makes me feel nostalgic. I just watched Reality Bites. Other movies that are good for this are: Singles, Empire Records, The Usual Suspects, and Four Rooms all make me feel nostalgic. Because I remember them from back in the day. Music will also make me feel nostalgic. I’ll associate music with a time or place, an event or a time period for sure.
Sometimes, walking or driving down a street will make me feel nostalgic. We went to the Regal Cinema in Lakewood, which I haven’t been to in years. And, it reminded me there used to be a twenty-four hour bowling alley with mini golf there. It is gone now, but the sign is the same. It was a bit surreal.
It was like I was transported to another year, but things were also different, so it was more like another dimension. Sometimes I will see a photo, or even a television commercial that will remind me of another time or place. It seems like the older I get, the more likely I am to be nostalgic, the more triggers I am going to have, good or bad, for other memories.
Sometimes someone will say something that will trigger something, or it could be as simple as a random thought in a chain of thoughts that eventually leads to something from the past. I don’t mind feeling nostalgic, but I don’t want to get trapped in the past either. I also want to look ahead to the future. So, I have to be cognizant of that and pull myself out of it sometimes.