Butterflies Are Still There, Waiting to Be Stirred
“Nostalgia is a gift, but if we let it, it can convince us that the best of life is behind us. And that’s the real trap.”
I got to see my friend’s eyes flicker as she shared with me her recent love story. Last August, she had found “the one.” While I listened to the beautiful story of how they met, all the synchronicities that surfaced as they got to know one another, and how they are shifting into a life of greater closeness and alignment, I couldn’t help but simultaneously compare her recent journey to both my partnership’s origin story and the story we live day in, day out.
To myself, I thought, “Wow, it’s been almost seven years since I was enveloped in the mystery, the imagining, the hoping, the anticipation, and the all-comforting Knowing.”
The funny thing is that, just the previous week, my partner and I inadvertently revisited our own origin story at the dinner table on a Tuesday night. With our family’s insane schedule, it’s sparse that a night like this unfolds - sitting, casually sipping wine and pondering, chatting. We pretty much retold the blow-by-blow of how we came together. How we both knew and carefully hoped, how neither of us really (oddly) hesitated to dive in, parental introductions done within weeks of initially meeting.
(A lot of this was catalyzed by my growing belly—seven months at the time, with D-Day right around the corner. I wasn’t interested in dating casually.)
When I revisit our story, I get the butterflies. I can zoom far, far out, and see the forest from the trees. I remove myself from the beautiful but demanding trenches of my daily responsibilities as Mother and COO of Home. I remember why and just how meaningfully he and I came together.
I remember: it isn’t that hard to get those butterflies back.
So, as I joined my friend in sheer joy for her relatively newer, yet just as deeply meaningful union, I thought about how our lived experiences stay within us, and I started wondering about how we go about accessing them.
The Emotional Thread of Memory
When I stopped working full-time to be that Mother and COO, I found myself reliving parts of my own childhood. I know that it is a privilege and gift, however grueling, to be as present for my children as I get to be. I am currently plotting our summer, which will include two weeks of swim lessons in the same city where my mom took my brother and me in the 1980s and 1990s. I can’t help but want to recreate the experiences my mom created for us - listening to Cruisin' Classics cassette tapes that were free giveaways from McDonald’s at the time, as we drove the 20 minutes from San Francisco into suburban Marin County. I remember sitting in our silver diesel-engine Volvo and cracking up over my little brother mildly erroneously singing along to the Beach Boys, citing, “Surfing U-Ass-A….” It was the best.
The word that comes to mind is nostalgia.
The concept is a bit more complex. Am I mourning something? Am I holding on to the past? Is it healthy? Do I let go?!
And then I realized: these memories are attached to significant emotions. And these emotions are part of us. And they will always be there for us.
We don’t just remember events; we relive them - our brain and body reactivating the emotions, the physical responses, the warmth in our chest. The past doesn’t just sit in the mind. It moves through us.
The Beauty and the Trap of Nostalgia
Of course, there’s a caveat. (There always is.)
There’s such a thing as rosy retrospection. Nostalgia can be comforting, but it can also distort reality. Our brains tend to filter out painful details, making the past seem more ideal than it actually was. It’s why the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship feels so golden in hindsight. It’s why childhood summers seem endless and uncomplicated, even though they were surely full of scraped knees and sibling fights.
Nostalgia is a gift, but if we let it, it can convince us that the best of life is behind us. And that’s the real trap.
So I asked myself, “How do I use this?”
How do I honor my memories without being trapped by them?
How do I hold onto the joy of the past while fully experiencing the now?
And what I came to was this: I don’t need to let go of the past. I need to invite it forward.
I can revisit our love story not to compare it to today, but to deepen today - to remind myself of the foundation we built, to spark curiosity about what still exists between us, to recognize that the butterflies are still in there, waiting to be stirred.
I can channel my childhood summers into my children’s lives, not to recreate them perfectly, but to infuse them with the same spirit of wonder, adventure, and joy.
I can embrace nostalgia as a bridge, not an anchor - a way to weave past happiness into my present, instead of chasing something that’s already come and gone.
The truth is, we are always making memories. One day, this exact moment will be a memory I long to hold onto. So maybe the real work is making sure that today’s moments are just as rich as the ones I cherish from before.
And I think that starts with being here - fully, presently, lovingly - right now.
