Nostalgia

Sometimes I think nostalgia is just that feeling you get when you've lost something. I picked up a book from and old series I used to read as a kid. They're the Anne of Green Gables books and I adore them. They never get old. What's weird is that those books, while extremely satisfying reads, also leave me with a somewhat empty nostalgia.

As a child I loved the books because the heroine was hilarious and also someone I could relate to:
-orphan
-skinny and homely
-bookworm

The books tell her story from about age 11 all the way till she's in about her late '50s or early '60s. They are set in the late 1800's and early 1900's on Prince Edward Island in Canada. I've always been the type to get nostalgic about times that I never lived in, so when I first read the books I would become nostalgic for a childhood lived in those times.

Now, however, I not only feel that familiar nostalgia, but also the pangs of the memories that reading these books bring back of my own childhood. My mother and my best friend and I used to watch the Anne of Green Gables movies and we all read the books. We dreamt of lives and loves like Anne had and wondered what our own lives might someday become.

Sometimes I feel like life passed me by in so many ways. My childhood was, in many ways, very rocky. My teen years were ok, but dominated by a controlling and religious homelife. My early twenties were more fun...until I ended up pregnant, unhappily married and off track with my goals in school.

Now I'm in my mid twenties, hoping, I guess to recapture everything, to suck life in and enjoy every moment. I want it all. I want the house, the husband, the academic accomplishments and the amazing/fulfilling job that pays me oodles. Can I do it? I sure as hell am going to try. All the while I hope I can be the mother that my daughter needs me to be. I want things to be so different for her than they were for me.

I guess it's just tough for me that my own mistakes have led to a hurdle that my daughter will have live with. I hope she won't have all the dissatisfaction that I have dealt with in my life. I want her to feel good about her life and to accomplish everything she dreams of.