Nostalgia will kill you if you let it

I see the old man picking out his newspaper, and the family arguing in the confectionary aisle, and my trolly full of fresh supplies for a new life, and I hope: I will never come back to this place.

Nostalgia will kill you if you let it.

I am stood counting boxes of white rice at the checkout of my local supermarket; fluorescent lights push directly downwards into my scalp and through the backs of my pained eyes. Dad is talking – rambling – to the woman behind the counter, and I watch her freckled hands swipe packet after packet of those cheap-instant-noodles which I so love.

I am stood, counting boxes, and Dad is telling the woman about my leaving.

I remember standing at this counter once before, ten-or-so years ago while he bought us dinner. I remember thinking then that I want to leave this place, and go home. I think I didn’t quite realise that one day I would remember counting packages of ready-meals at supermarket checkouts like the glimmer of a childhood well-spent. I think I didn’t quite understand that these boxes of white rice, and the bags which Mother loads into the trolly behind me, could mark both a childhood-well-lived and an adulthood soon-to-be-born. Remnants of this childish taste peek through in the sweetener I still take in my tea, and these ready-to-eat meals which line the base of the trolly which we load. Alas, nostalgia will kill you if you let it.

That’s what I want to tell the woman behind the counter who asks me ‘aren’t you scared, moving all-the-way-out-there all by yourself?’. I am scared, I want to say, but I can’t live here anymore – I can’t let nostalgia get its claws wrapped around my ankles and cement me in the unforgiving ground of this place in which I was raised. Nostalgia will kill you if you let it. I see people die around here all the time. I see these old hands swiping packets of noodles and I can tell from the habitual movements that nostalgia has routed her in this place. I can tell that once she dreamed of being a dancer, the way her feet tap under the smooth surface of this checkout desk on which the fluorescent lights above reflect. I wonder if she knows she is not dead yet. She still has those tapping feet. She is less dead than ninety percent of the people here in this building.

The man who ran the music school died a long time ago, I think. The way he sat so firmly in that chair behind the desk, took the money from my hand with a glimmer of resentment every time I had a piano lesson. He is not a musician, any longer, like he maybe once dreamed of being. ‘Why would you ever leave this place?’ he asked me once, wide fingers pressed lazily against the rusted keys of his soulless instrument. Because, nostalgia will kill you if you let it. His foot did not tap, but pressed firm into this familiar ground. There is no longer a little boy, dreaming of getting out of this place; only, the bitter resentment of nostalgia’s ugly face shining through the dull surface of his eyes.

Mother loads the trolly up behind me, places stacks-on-stacks of tinned beans and vegetable soup. I am counting boxes of rice, and Dad never stops talking to the woman behind the checkout. I don’t tell him to shut up like I might normally. I worry soon I will feel nostalgic for that voice.

Nostalgia really will kill you if you let it.

At home, I know that I must place my life carefully into those plastic bins and brown paper boxes. I know that when I tell the woman at the checkout that nostalgia will kill you if you let it that I am a hypocrite, because I am picking and choosing the memories worthy of relocation. I am formulating the perfect scenario to enforce longing for a place which I should not miss. I wonder, often, if the house will be quieter without me in it. I wonder if that family of mine will be nostalgic for my presence.

The man who painted the white walls of my bedroom died years before he entered our house, stuck living in that hatred-filled-home with a family he didn’t quite seem to care for. I want to cry, when I see him post his politics online, when I watch the way he grimaces if you look away for a moment. I want to tell him: the hate will disappear with the nostalgia. I want to tell him: you must let go of these white painted walls and hatred-filled-homes and online posts and leave this place. I want to tell him it’s not too late, that if I can get out of here then so can he. But, memory is cruel and nostalgia will kill you if you let it.

I wonder if, when my mother slips through the crack of my bedroom door in a few months and sits atop my bed, and looks up at the posters I deemed unworthy of my new home, the walls will whisper to her: Nostalgia will kill you if you let it.

When we pay, and I am done counting boxes, and Dad is finally done talking, I wonder if I will ever be here again.

I see the old man picking out his newspaper, and the family arguing in the confectionary aisle, and my trolly full of fresh supplies for a new life, and I hope: I will never come back to this place.

I will never let nostalgia kill me.