“Nostalgia is a thing of the past.”

So read the magnet my mom kept on her refrigerator for as long as I can remember. As a young person, I found it a bit ironic. It seemed to be admonishing that one should look forward. Don’t get caught up in your yesterdays. And yet, my mom certainly seemed nostalgic. At least, that was my perception when I was in my 20s and 30s—and she was already in her 60s and 70s.

Looking back too much or too often seemed like a trap to me at that age; it seemed only a way to avoid moving forward. But now that I’m older, I can’t help but see a sort of clueless cynicism that perhaps comes with being young, when you are filled with goals and dreams that only the coming days and years can unfurl. Maybe that’s why that fridge magnet bugged me so much. All the older people I knew seemed so fond of the past. “Things were so much better in their younger days,” they’d tell me.

But the past held no romance for me. It felt like trying to get traction with a flat tire or living in black and white when the future was destined to be in Technicolor.

But then something happened. In 2020, when my parents could no longer live independently, my sister and I began taking full-time care of them, working in multi-day shifts. I saw that fridge magnet almost daily—in a house I hadn’t lived in for decades. And, “it hit different,” as young people today might say.

For a while, we watched Braves games with them, but when the baseball season was suspended due to COVID, we switched to old Andy Griffith reruns and other shows from days long past. The ballgames and old programs began to feel like a warm, hand-stitched quilt, enveloping me in comfort and warmth at a time of great uncertainty—and some inevitable certainties. Those fleeting moments were an escape; they were a way to touch in with a time that felt safer and, if not carefree, at least less arduous.

Fast-forward a couple of years. My parents transitioned, my sister and I sold the house we grew up in and I’d gotten through a brief bout with kidney cancer. My kids were in college and, while they still needed my wife and me, they needed us in a different way. Life seemed like a series of little earthquakes. Some expected, others not; each one reminding me that the ground beneath my feet was not always going to be calm and firm.

Then I began to notice a pattern. I was starting to listen to a lot of music I’d grown up with, preferring songs from the 70s and 80s over newer artists, even though I’d sworn I was going to stay up-to-date on the latest music scene. Anytime I had a chance, I turned on old episodes of The Office or Arrested Development, shows that had become my haven during a time when the kids were young, my parents were still around, and life felt more calmly moored.

And yes, Braves baseball became a passion again, not because the team was doing well, but because baseball provided a certain dependability: 162 games, nine innings per game, three outs per half-inning. A pattern I’d grown up with. One, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ballgame.

I had fallen into an appreciation of the security of reminiscence. It became something my mind and spirit craved when I felt off-balance or uncertain. It was like taking a nap on my childhood bed—it had a restorative familiarity. I’d become… nostalgic!

I have no idea what happened to that fridge magnet. I’m guessing my sister kept it. But in retrospect, I now think my mom was onto something. It took me a few decades to recognize her wisdom, which I’d so casually misinterpreted through the lens of youth. She wasn’t advertising that she was above the lure of pining for the past. She was simply reminding herself that it’s a great place to visit from time to time. ❧

Tommy Housworth is a professional writer, creative director for corporate projects, a certified mindfulness instructor and the author of two collections of short stories. A Sense of Wonder is his substack column.