It’s interesting to feel the shifting effects of nostalgia as I grow older. At one point in my life, it would prompt me to try recapturing some of that magic of my youth. At other times, it might make me feel forlorn or sorrowful, knowing certain things were gone forever. Now, it usually just makes me smile, remembering the past fondly but being just as content — if not mores — in the present. Yet, despite how familiar I am with the feeling of nostalgia, my earliest awareness of such feelings is probably sometime around the age of 16 (which is when Cartoon Network started airing shows like Thundercats and Voltron, which I’m SURE is completely unrelated). I never imagined that Miles, at three, might actually have the years under his belt to experience nostalgia himself, but tonight at bedtime we were scrolling through some videos on my phone, and we landed on this video. He giggled throughout the first viewing, then on the second he quieted down and just watched.
“I want to be that little again,” he said.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said, rubbing his head. “That’s not how it works.”
Maybe I just need to toss a ball back and forth with him more often, to help him hold onto that feeling as long as he can.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 