Recently i confronted my nostalgic feelings on a “reunion with the past” road trip i did with my brother. Although we had an amazing time, i am extremely grateful we did that. Here on why old home is no longer my home and how it felt to stand on my father grave for the first time
My relationship with Poland was always a mixed bag. On one hand I love food and opportunity to grow up in this country. On the other hand, I had so much personal trauma connected to this space, it was difficult to breathe. I couldn’t wait and I called quits on this country the very first moment I got my high-school diploma and A-levels results. Not even a month later I was sitting in a one-way train to the Germany. Back then still telling myself that I will visit often, keep my friendships and acquittances, enjoy lower prices in Poland,… That lasted maybe half a year before I settled in new, untraumatized reality.
Germany turned out to not be the place for me but I never looked back. We kept heading west, now in the Netherlands, my new forever home where I found peace and myself. Where I could save my family. Years have gone by and I never even thought about visiting, let alone going back.
It all kind of changed when my father died in 2021. Not covid related, he had a lifelong of very ridiculous house cleaning supplies abuse for their ethanol content. For years I wondered his side of the story for my family abuse, his death got me while I was in the middle of therapy in which I was, among other, preparing myself to meet him and ask him my questions. I had no idea if he would even entertain the idea of such meeting, but I needed that nonetheless. Well… In February 2021 all was severed. I still got 2 more years of help to sort myself out. And I did! But I never got the closure I wanted.
Closure came this summer.
After the therapy, I went on and finally did my driver license, bought a new car, started planning road trips. My brother also searched for vacations. After long sessions of discussions, we decided to do a nostalgia trip. See the places we grew up in, how they changed, visit family graves. And then, go and have some actual rest in a brand-new place.
I was expecting this trip to invoke a lot of nostalgia, I thought that my traumas were centered about people, not language and physical spaces so I thought that I will enjoy my favorite bakeries, restaurants, past time activities, etc.
First shock came while we were driving towards the Polish border. For the first time since I left, I felt like I am about to suffocate. Random panic attack was settling in. In the hindsight, it was just the trauma. But because my life in my new home was so stress and trauma free, I had no idea about the amount of baggage one can keep in hold, assigned to a physical place. It all got released when I realized that next stop on the way is Poland and I can’t divert anymore.
But as a no longer Pole, I braved through that.
Going through the towns I spent better half of my childhood in was somber experience. On one hand I enjoyed familiarity. When navigation was leading us in a stupid way, I was immediately able to figure out more sensible alternative from memory. I was still able to say where everything was and most of the establishments, we hold dear survived the test of time. Just to give a taste of the good: We ate at amazing bar “Zacisze” in Bialogard. Amazing little milk bar that even today is selling full size meals made with love for equivalent of 2-4€ (!). And service really understood the mission that locals like that have in their communities. Even we, outsiders, were treated like the dearest members of community, we got taste of that love and care. One of the workers birthdays was coming up and people were bringing gifts. During lunch service they all knew most clients by names and knew their stories personally. And the food was absolutely divine!
But on the side of this amazing and nostalgic experiences, there was constantly something icky or straight up bad. Cities seemingly developed more and looked shinier, but only as a façade to hide simple strip malls behind it. A lot of third places often dismantled. Or you could see the results of good renovations happening in a way that killed unique character of places or made them desolate emptyscapes.
Overall, we felt familiarity but not home.
We felt like we changed and places changed, but we grew in a different direction.
I understood for the first time, first hand, why nostalgia is like a friendly poison. It poisons your everyday life, claiming that past was better, simpler, more organized. But it only remembers what was, not what can be. It doesn’t account for fact that each and every single one of us grows in a different pace, manner, style.
We’re not a stable lake.
We’re flowing river!
We change with the seasons more than we give ourselves credit for, we constantly adjust to new technology, to the new experiences, to the new people and what they bring to our lives. Nostalgia makes you forget about it. Makes you cling to something that is gone and done.
Final blow to the nostalgia came in the form of my father grave.
Seeing that name etched in the marble, knowing that his body is rotten beneath it, remembering all the suffering he created and directed but me, one of main targets of his abuse still breathing while he was not. It released me. It lifted that veil of nostalgia from the reality. In the best way possible it was a metaphor for that past life in that country. I couldn’t help but notice while standing there, all the growth, progress, tears and sacrifice it took me to unfuck my life from the sins of this man. From other abusive people that I had questionable pleasure of meeting in that time.
It did kind of feel like standing on my own grave.
Like I stand on the grave of my past life.
Before that trip I wanted to be angry at him, I wanted to “stick it to him” one last time. For long I debated just pissing on his grave or doing any other unspeakable things just so he can’t rest in peace like I couldn’t develop in peace.
But standing there I realized that I got the ultimate revenge. I got my life back. I was given screwup I didn’t ask for nor deserved and yet I fixed it, make it better. From the deep hell that made me write my over 200 pages long memoir, to new reality where I am still breathing, and they don’t. I walked the walk so I could talk the talk. And they were too little people to do that themselves.
I felt somber.
I felt released.
I felt like I got my life back.
I did none of the defecating things.
Instead, I bought him a candle with one big word written on it “Pamiętamy” (Eng. “We remember”) and light it up. Instead of pissing on him, I cleaned the weeds growing up from his grave.
Instead of getting answer to my questions, I gave him a little prayer. Not for his soul. But with intention, that if his actions were not motivated by evil but by lost man that genuinely wanted to be a good father but got lost in the addiction, for him to take care of us, of my little brother. If there is afterlife and people to pray for, for him to show, at least from that other side, what he could have been.
It’s better that way.
I could keep my anger alive; I could be nasty. But for what benefit of whom?
This doesn’t apply exclusively to negative memories.
What benefit I could get from clinging to nostalgia of childhood era?
I would rather not be trapped in yesterday’s rooms while today’s sun is shining outside.
Talking with my friends about this experience made me realize, nostalgia is never a good feeling. Sure, thanks to that we remember good things from the past. But we need to remember that this is just it; a filter on the reality. And just like that Instagram filter alters your image to the point you can barely recognize yourself in it, nostalgia does the same for your memory. It sugar coats, removes all the bad and show you in the perfect algorithm sense only what you want to see in it. It looks for what you what you’re missing in your today life and search that in the past.
Let me finish this with an appeal:
Be gentle for and indulge in nostalgia. But remember that this is just a snapshot of the past, not the whole picture. And like all snapshots, remember that this time is gone and done and no matter how strong you will cling to it, you can’t bring it back. Time doesn’t work that way. We can’t move back clock hands and enjoy this times as they were. We all grew since.
But we can ALWAYS transform today into our new nostalgia. To revisit these days fondly when years of time pass us by.