Battles of Longing and Nostalgia
They say that no one has truly lived without, at some point, passing beneath their wheels; no heart has escaped the arrows they so mercilessly cast.
We close our doors, yet they slip in through the windows.
We surrender to sleep, and their embrace casts its shadow across our beds.
We close our eyes, only to find them waiting for us in every image, every scene, every sound that wanders through the chambers of our minds.
And as though that were not enough, they creep silently into our souls with every colour, every fragrance, every familiar scent.
Who are we to stand against their armies?
We have nothing but stones and spears, while they carry every weapon known to the human heart.
Yet they are not enemies like the others. There is something far more treacherous about them. Who else can wound you with the edge of a sword, then rejoice at the sight of you fallen, secretly wishing that death might come and release you from it all?
Some among us believed that hardening their hearts would be armour against them. Yet they shattered at the first encounter.
Others believed that surrendering to them, worshipping them, and giving them a sacred place within their hearts would keep them safe. Instead, they found themselves burning suddenly upon their altar.
Why?
Because longing and nostalgia are like the sun.
Whether you stand within its heart, upon its surface, or merely beneath its burning sky, you will inevitably feel its fire.
Others said: *They rise from within us. Let us build dams against them; let us stop their waters before they overwhelm us.*
But their fragile walls collapsed beneath the weight of old wounds, and the floods that followed threatened not only their own lives, but the lives of those around them.
There is no doubt that longing and nostalgia belong to us, and live within us.
They are the soul of the flower of our existence—a flower whose features change, whose fragrance deepens, and whose nectar transforms with every passing season.
They are born with us, and they remain with us.
Their roots are buried deep within our hearts, nourished by everything we draw from the earth, mingled with a little of what falls from the heavens.
And yet, we are the ones who grow the thorns.
We grow them because we fear tomorrow, even while the sky still carries its clouds of hope, and the earth has never once forgotten how to give.
So how could longing and nostalgia possibly be the villains?
Are we not merely placing upon them the blame for our own weakness?
What fault is theirs if we are bound to the earth while they belong to the heavens?
What fault is theirs if we mistake love for possession—if we believe that loving something means owning it, holding it, keeping it from ever leaving?
And what fault is theirs if, somewhere within the dark labyrinths of our own wounds, we have lost the certainty of what love was meant to be?
Perhaps longing never betrayed us.
Perhaps nostalgia never wounded us.
Perhaps they merely reveal what still lives within us,
the places,
the people,
the moments we could never hold forever,
and the parts of ourselves that time carried away…
Perhaps the battle was never against them at all.
Perhaps the true battle has always been within us.
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