The Soft Violence of Nostalgia

There’s a kind of quiet violence in nostalgia. It doesn’t hit you all at once—it slips in gently, like the softest of whispers, and before you know it, you're drowning in it. The past, once a source of comfort, becomes a place you can never return to. And yet, you keep going back, searching for something you can never hold again.

How strange it is, that the very memories that once warmed us, now tear at us with a tenderness we don’t know how to escape. We remember those moments with a bittersweet ache—those sunlit afternoons, those laughs shared like nothing could ever hurt us. Back when the world was wide, and we were still so sure.

But with every recollection, there’s a sting. A reminder that those days are gone, and we are not who we were. That somehow, even the most beautiful moments can become burdens. The beauty of the past becomes a shadow, pulling us back, trapping us in a version of ourselves that no longer exists.

It’s not that we regret those days. No, we cherish them. But they hurt now. Like a bruise you can’t stop touching, even though you know it’s only going to make it worse. The beauty, the love, the innocence—none of it feels the same when we can’t reach it anymore.

Maybe that’s the quiet violence of nostalgia. It isn’t the forceful assault of regret—it’s the slow erosion of time, the soft unraveling of what once was. And yet, even in the hurt, we go back. Because, perhaps, it’s in these fragile memories that we find a piece of ourselves that we’re afraid to let go of. A part that we don’t know how to move forward without.

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