We don’t miss our first cars, the food we ate growing up, or the friends we used to have. We tell ourselves we miss those things and that time of life, but we actually miss what that time represents: familiarity, predictability, and possibility. Life was easier and simpler then, though we didn’t comprehend it. A part of us thinks we would go back and enjoy experiencing those places and people again, but the truth is we’ve moved on. We would be bored and frustrated trying to experience things as we did or as we “should have”.

We can’t have what we are longing for.