I don't think I ever had a proper period of nostalgia. The feeling sort of overwhelms me at it's leisure...like a transient entity...a bad landlord that drops by arbitrarily. I've moved 3 miles from the place I've lived since I was 5 years old. Not nearly far enough away to douse the echoes of so many daily journeys to the train...countless trips to the sub shops just around the corner...and all those fantastical pilgramages to my friends' houses. Where have they gone? I know Mike (with his TRS-80 and PARSEC cartridge) faded long ago...and others are back there, but it's different now. Our collective heads have travelled beyond the threshold of adulthood...our childhood fantasies realized and replaced by more complex memes that transcend our geographical locales. Even when we're together it's a sentimental yearning-fest.
Not to say that it's all a futile excercise of trying to reinitialize an irrecoverable condition.
The only thing that I can label as an inherantly "adult" state (so far) is the dichotomy of simultaneous nostalgia and foresight. Somehow, I've armed myself with a metal detector (fitted with a rear-view mirror) on the beach that is lucid existence. A day that shares the purity of learning new experiences, tempered with a blueprint of past excursions on familiar ground, is common enough for me to accept my life as a work in progress worthy of continued funding.
I'll be honest with you (me)...I've had a few drinks, and the euphoria I'm feeling right now (euphoria = somewhat pretentious bullshit-i-tude...bear with me...it passes) convinces me that there is a "code"...a series of conduits and pathways that constitute "truth". Whether or not I've actually latched on to one of these hotlines is pure conjecture...but there's a "beat'...an undeniable tempo that I can adhere to. I know I'll read this later and wonder why I didn't wait...but, at the same time, I'll ponder my mindset and realize that there's no joy that compares to the manifestation of thought as it occurs.
But there are MANY other types of joy...