There is a certain emotion we all have the potential to experience, and it is an emotion that can only be described as "terrifying nostalgia." I briefly felt it yesterday afternoon, but it smothered me in totality at 11:30 last night. I was watching a movie on the Sundance Channel called Security, Colorado, which is a city I've never been to and which probably does not exist. It was a cheap, rudimentary film (slow-moving, shot on video, mostly improvised) that was clearly made by people in their very early twenties. The plot involved a 21-year-old woman from Denver who relocated to Security, Colorado, to be with her new boyfriend and quickly became depressed by her alien surroundings. The pacing of this movie was shockingly deliberate: In one scene, the woman just sat at a desk and wordlessly updated her résumé; later, we watched her drive to the post office and mail the résumé to prospective employers. Within the reality of Security, Colorado, this sequence constitutes "action." And I'm not sure if this was supposed to be entertaining or insightful, but it was certainly arresting. I could have watched that scene five times in a row.
Now, here's what's so terrifying about Security, Colorado: The stark, pedestrian images used by the filmmakers (probably out of financial necessity) expressed nothing, symbolically or metaphorically. The only purpose they served was to remind me that a huge chunk of my live is completely over, even though I will probably live 60 more years. There are so many things that will never happen to me again, and I never even noticed when these things stopped occurring. And this does not mean I wish I had my old life back, because I like my new life better; I was just shocked to discover how much of what used to be central to my existence doesn't even matter to me any more.
There is a scene in Security, Colorado where the female protagonist ("Karen") is working at a record store, and an acquaintance comes into the store and invites her to a house party. A few hours later, Karen drives to a home that looks like a cross between a private residence and a dive bar; she walks down to the cement-laden basement and stands around uncomfortably, thoughtlessly chattering with people she barely knows while listening to an amateur garage band playing at a ridiculous volume in a very small space. After the party, she returns to her spartan apartment. Her TV is broken. I think she sleeps on a mattress on the floor, but maybe it's just a bad futon; she has some sporadic sex (but not much), and it only makes her life worse. Karen worries about everything, but she can only express her worry through uncreative clichés. her whole life has an excessively casual, excessively melodramatic ambiance.
What's so disquieting to me is how this kind of life -- a life of going to joyless keg parties and having intense temporary acquaintances and spending most of one's time in basements and tiny apartments and crappy rented houses with five bedrooms -- was once my life completely (as it probably was for many people like me). Those were the only things I ever did. That wasn't part of how I lived; that was everything. But now it's like those experiences never happened at all. I can recall having conversations with people during college that would seem impossible to have today (both in subject matter and in overall tone). I vaguely recall a person from Stillwater, Minnesota; I can't remember her name. She had black hair and pointy eyebrows. She was flat-chested and pretty. One night in November, we sat in her bedroom and spent 45 minutes intensely discussing how Pearl Jam's Ten was undeniably good, but not as life-altering as Nevermind or Screaming Life (this Minnesota chick adored Soundgarden, so I pretended they were electrifying). Nothing romantic happened; we weren't drunk, and we weren't close friends. I just happened to be there, and we just talked. Pedestrian as those details may seem, I honestly cannot imagine falling into that kind of situation ever again. I mean, how did I possibly end up sitting on this woman's bed? What were the circumstances that led me there? Was Eddie Vedder really that significant to us? And why did this seemingly intimate encounter lead absolutely nowhere? Why didn't we (at the very least) become friends? The whole episode now strikes me as inappropriate and random and completely inexplicable. But that used to be my life, all the time. That used to be normalcy, and now that normalcy is completely over. Things like that will never happen to me again, even if I want them to. And I did not choose to stop living that life, nor did I try to continue living that life. I just didn't notice when it stopped.
When you start thinking about what your life was like 10 years ago -- and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail -- it's disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completely dead. They die long before you do. It's astonishing to consider all the things from your past that used to happen all the time but (a) never happen anymore, and (b) never even cross your mind. It's almost like those things didn't happen. Or maybe it seems like they just happened to someone else. To someone you don't really know. To someone you just hung out with for one night, and can't even remember her name.