I’m over trying to make the perfect memories.
With my final weeks at Queen’s creeping up, I’m already looking back wistfully at a chapter that hasn’t even ended, wondering how I’ll see it from a year’s or decade’s time. I can’t help myself.
I’ve always been a hopelessly nostalgic person. Even when I was young, I found myself looking back at earlier memories, longing for things I no longer had—old friendships that drifted apart, my first childhood bedroom, or my beloved piglet stuffed animal. It’s ironic because it seems like nostalgia and sentimentality are qualities reserved for someone with far more years behind them.
Fast forward 10 years or so, and I’m still the same person. I can recall in utmost detail, fond memories from Grade five or high school as if I were living them in real-time. It’s not that I’m incapable of being present—I’m just enamoured by the idea that with a single thought I can transport back to a different place and time.
But dwelling on the past has robbed me from appreciating the environment, people, and opportunities right in front of me. It’s a dishonest way to live.
Going into university, I felt this pressure to create amazing memories to look back on, so that one day when I’m old, retired, and feeling sentimental, I may relive satisfying moments from my adolescence. I fed into the idea that these four years were meant to be some of my best. I wondered about the friendships I’d make, the milestones I’d achieve, the person I’d become, and the lasting memories they’d create. But what I didn’t understand was not all these memories were going to be happy.
I spent the winter semester of third year studying abroad in Manchester, and the better part of those few months navigating a long-distance relationship. With so little time and even more pressure to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I was in for a rude awakening.
Suddenly, I had one month of exchange left to go—I was freshly 21 with my first break-up under my belt, spending late nights alone in the library, wanting nothing more than to be back home. I felt like I was failing my future self and her nostalgic outlook, too scared to live with the regret and pain this was all my hard-earned time abroad amounted to.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It’s true: my relationship didn’t make the distance, I didn’t go to all the places on my bucket list, and I didn’t keep in touch with all my friends in the UK once I returned home. But when you focus on all the times you failed to create positive memories, you let the precious moments that were happening all along get away.
When the clouds of grief and sadness parted, I finally made space to hold the other memories I’d collected along the way. I started living life anew, letting moments unfold before me, not knowing what kind of memories they’d leave behind. I took a spontaneous trip to my dream city, Brighton, opened up to new faces, and finally slowed down, knowing there was no more expectation to turn every moment into something amazing, all the time.
Looking back, I treasure this whole chapter of university—not because it was happy but because it transformed me. Those disappointing moments taught me to appreciate that there’s beauty when things don’t go according to plan.
We can’t pick and choose which moments become solidified in our memory. After all, life isn’t a carousel of carefully edited highlights. Between the blissful moments are ones that are insignificant, imperfect, unhappy, challenging, and painful. And those deserve to be ed and cherished because they make us who we are.
We don’t create good memories. Our only job is to live life and enjoy it to the best of our ability—memories will follow suit and create themselves.
In an effort to let go of nostalgic expectation and live in the moment, I’ve taken this perspective into my final semester of undergrad—and it’s liberating.
A list of memories to make before graduation sits unchecked in the back of my desk drawer, but I’m okay with trading them for the imperfect memories that I trust are unfolding, right now.
In my university house, every Tuesday night for the past three years has been designated “garbage night.” It wasn’t until recently this dreaded task—full of smells and unexplainable messes—became something I cherished. There aren’t many moments in our busy days where we’d drop everything, forget about our problems, and be our most unapologetic selves together.
I didn’t plan these moments. I didn’t craft these memories. Yet, they came to define my early adult years and taught me to enjoy living without looking back.
I might earn some questionable looks when I say my fondest university memories weren’t made on Homecoming or crazy weekend adventures, but rather cleaning the kitchen with my housemates at 11 p.m. with music blasting or chasing down that week’s new insect under the living room couch.
Sure, there are things I wish I accomplished—ing more clubs, devoting more time to developing as many film projects as my peers, or branching out earlier when I first got here. But knowing I ended up at The Journal, made my first documentary, and have the amazing friends I have now—I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It truly serves no purpose to dwell on what’s gone or missing when I can be content with all the unexpected memories I did make. There’s something precious about fleeting moments that can only be savoured in the moment because no amount of nostalgia will rescue them.
There’s no choosing which memories get solidified as part of our past—we accept the good and bad. What we can decide is how we grow and move on from them because in all the times that were disappointing or anticlimactic in the moment are seeds of growth and gratitude.
I’ll probably never stop being nostalgic. I still catch myself glancing back, through rose coloured glass, and missing experiences I’ll never have again.
But, for now, I’m choosing to ditch the comforting blanket of nostalgia I once clung to, allowing my presentness to take me by the reins.
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