My girl turned 13 last summer and it feels like she left her childhood behind never to return only to be lived in memory. I’m fine. Everything is fine. I’m not freaking out at all. So let’s talk about nostalgia! Not in the musical sense of hearing a song that “takes you back”, or in the area of the olfactory where a smell takes you back, but in a very specific way today….relationally… as a parent.

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy, personal associations.

I feel like I’ve been old for most of my life. Not more mature. Oh, goodness no. Older. A family member once said, “He’s 16 going on 30.” I don’t think they meant it as a compliment. I haven’t landed one way or the other if feeling a sense of older was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was a thing.

Nostalgia was a constant companion during my childhood, but it was in somewhat of a warped form. Nostalgia by definition is a wistful affection for the past. My form of nostalgia was more of a wistful affection for a past that didn’t exist other than in my own mind, a past I hadn’t experienced, but felt all the feels as if I had. So right or wrong, I gravitated toward things that fed into my sense of nostalgia. Music, film, books, art, all the things. It was only until years later did I realize part of my own “nostalgia”, my pining for a place with happy, personal associations was partially to escape some things. But I digress…

A TV show I was obsessed with in my younger years was The Wonder Years. It follows the adventures of a pre-teen through several teenage years and is narrated by his adult self. Per Rotten Tomatoes…“The Wonder Years” tracks life in the turbulent late 1960s and early ’70s through the eyes of pre-teen Kevin Arnold. Narrated by an adult Kevin. 

I mostly watched it in syndication. Even though I didn’t live in the particular era featured in the show I was the same age as the main character, Kevin Arnold, when I started watching religously. The strange part was I didn’t necessarily connect with Kevin as much as I connected with the narrator, the adult Kevin. Not because I was connecting to what the narrator was saying, but because I was connecting to what the narrator was feeling. I felt a kinship with his emotion of longing of days gone by….yet I was 12. I wasn’t more mature, special, deeper emotionally, etc. It’s just how I was.

With having a 13 year old, I realized she is about the age Kevin Arnold was during the show. So it’s quite the brain swirl to now be the age of the narrator of my own “Kevin Arnold” who is now going through similar ups and downs and emotions. Much like it is depicted in The Wonder Years, she is moving on from a carefree child who laughs easily to a teenager who is becoming more introspective by the day. She is still deliriously delightful and a pleasure to be around no doubt, but life is fast approaching and she simply doesn’t laugh as easily, she gets disheartened more easily, she internalizes.

She has always been pretty introspective, pretty quiet… and she gets it honest. Overall, my wife and I are pretty introspective and quiet. Now we enjoy going out, really enjoy going to concerts, exploring new places that stir our creativity and verve for making an impact in this life, but we have a quiet home other than the occasional dance party. But still, the change is happening. I don’t say it with profound sadness or worry. It’s another stage and we’ll adjust. Love. Nurture. Encourage. Learn. Adjust. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Nostalgia runs deep during the holiday season and this past year we found ourselves dipping our toes in it a bit more talking about how she doesn’t act as magical about Christmas. We talked about how little she used to be, how innocent, so sweet and full of imagination. But while we talked about it we were cognizant to not miss what was right in front of us. We do pretty well at enjoying the moments we are making during this season, but it’s pretty easy to think beyond it and remember her as a child so full of wonder. She’s at an age where she has realizes Santa is not real, the elves do not in fact arrive for a visit, the gifts may simply have arrived from Amazon and not the North Pole, and I was most likely the one who swiped the milk and cookies. We are passing through that season with our child. Where the magic of life is fading a bit. “The Tooth Fairy, too?!”

As we race through another year we see the difficulty for her as she navigates wanting to grow up….and wanting to stay a child. Her spirit can sense the excitement in the years ahead…. and the hazards. Our spirits can sense the excitement in the years ahead…. and the hazards.

It is a challenging time for her. As she speeds toward the end of her 8th grade year (I’ll have more to say about that after graduation) we have had deep conversations about “soaking it up” and realizing once she heads to high school, life will never quite be the same.

We want her to grow up, but we know these childhood days are quickly fading and once they are gone, in so many ways…. they are gone forever.

What adds another wrinkle to these days is everywhere we turn it seems the world and many in our smaller world want her to grow up as fast as possible. She’s 13 years old and yet many believe in the various arenas of her life that she should be diving headfirst into, and beyond, the teenage world and simply get older as quickly as possible. I understand it’s the world we live in. It has always been this way and yet… I don’t quite understand it.

To be clear, my wife and I are not keeping her from maturing. Quite the opposite. We’re not trying to keep her away from the things she will need to face. We have had very difficult conversations about this world, the things she is already facing and the decisions she already has had to make that we would have never dreamed of when we were her age. To add, most people who are around her with any amount of consistency will tell us she seems so mature for her age and beyond her age. So we are not in any way trying to hold her back. We simply don’t hold her back. We are preparing her to make her mark in whatever way(s) the Lord asks of her and wherever the path. But at the same time…she is 13.

We want her to live out the age of 13 to the fullest. She is only 13 once so we want her to live the ever living poo out of this age. She doesn’t need to be 14 or 15 or 17. She is 13. If she wants to imagine and enjoy the comforting scent of childhood for just a little while longer, why would we want to suppress it? Why would anyone want to suppress it? Life will be here soon enough and I’m sure I’ll hear a few amens when I say that adulting is completely overrated and to be more clear, can be quite brutal. The battle between childlike emotions bumping up against the demoralizing tedium of adulthood? No bueno.

And as parenting a child who has flown right into the teeanage years, nostalgia can be a warm blanket to distract us from the difficulties of her present and approaching age(s). But it’s dangerous. You see it all the time, parents almost disappointed in their children for having the audacity to grow up. I had to catch myself the first time I noticed she didn’t really get as excited at the thought of Santa Claus. We could see her face “working it out” and the look that appeared was one of realization with a bit of melancholy and sadness mixed in. That wasn’t a fun moment. Not because I wanted her to continue to believe in Santa Claus, but because there was a part of her that still wanted to believe… but she knew it was time to let that part of herself go and her sense of wonder to fade. (Yet we know there is Someone she can believe in and the connection will never fade.)

Nostalgia can be a great distraction when you have a child moving from childhood to teen. Remembering her when she was a little butterball. Remembering when she was born and the doctors in the delivery room laughing and saying, “Look at those cheeks!” Joyful. Hearing her say “Daddy” for the first time. Watching her stumble around and eventually walk.

Seeing her so confidently walk into school as she entered kindergarten.

And yes, all of the memories of Christmases and birthdays. Nostalgia can indeed be a warm blanket. And it’s not bad in and of itself… but it’s not reality. And if we’re not careful we will have the slightest bit of resentment towards our children for growing up and not be that little child running through the house with that unmistakable sound of the pitter-patter of their tiny little feet. They turn into beings of independence. Their own thoughts. Their own ideas. Their own fashion sense. Oh my.

I have a friend who posts pictures of his kids on social media. His kids are currently in college and beyond, but most of his posts are pictures of them as children. The “happy” times. You can almost feel the disappointment in his heart that they grew up. I don’t want that for our daughter. For how we treat her. How we view who she is. Nostalgia can run thick and it’s a dangerous drug. I want to enjoy every moment with my girl. With excitement. With joy. With anticipation of what the Lord is going to do next through her life as she navigates each stage.

Our Father in heaven never desired for us to stay young, to never grow, so why should we desire it for our children? And just like our Father never wants us to lose our childlike faith, our pure trust in Him, we of course want our children to never lose their trust in us as their parents (and ultimately in God). Nostalgia has its place with our kids. Great memories are great! We just can’t live there and pine for our children to remain in that space in our nostalgic mind.

Now to look in the mirror….

I have more gray hair. Less hair. I’m at the age where getting up from the chair is now a risk. Will I pull a muscle? Aches and pains fail to disappear within a day. They linger. What is that?! Obtaining extra fiber within a meal is a positive. I still have years to go if the Lord so wills, but I am aware that I have probably lived more years than I have left. It can be a sobering thought, but depending on your perspective it can be quite motivating.

I look back on my life now more than I used to. It’s completely natural given my increased age. But I try not to look back too much with nostalgia, with thoughts of “the good old days” or whatever that means. I had a good childhood, but we all have our skeletons. For people who knew our family during my childhood and the childhood of my brothers it would be hard to believe ours wasn’t perfect. As you get older you gain some wisdom and you can look back on those years and remember the moments or seasons that helped develop who you have become, both good, but also some deep pain that you didn’t know at the time would follow you throughout your life, but God uses it all.

Nostalgia is a sneaky beast. We find ourselves spending more time talking about how it used to be, that the best days are gone never to return, and less time talking about how it is, the opportunities right in front of us… and those at our feet. It can be a paralyzing thing looking to the past. Especially if it is filled with regret. May we never forget that the Lord has wiped the board clean and fresh for us…. and He will do it every morning if necessary.

Don’t misunderstand. We can learn from the past. The past is full of information. Good decisions. Bad decisions. Experiences. On and on. But learn what you can from it and move on if it doesn’t guide you closer to who God has created you to be.

Ultimately, I desire for my nostalgia to point to an existence beyond time. To have that same sensation of longing, like the narrator in The Wonder Years, but for a place I haven’t been… but know in my heart it’s where I belong. Praise the Lord. Where I am meant to be. Where my child is meant to be.

As C.S. Lewis said, “These things–the beauty, the memory of our own past–are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

If I was in the mind of my Creator before the foundations of the earth were laid and our Lord is not confined to our rudimentary idea of time, then my “sentimental longing or wistful affection…” is for the future, the past, and the present where He exists “for a period or place with happy personal associations.” 

I don’t know what the future holds for my 13 year old, but I know our Lord is there and He is what we should long for as we navigate this next season of life. And though the past and being nostalgic for it can warm the mind and it is not a bad thing on the surface, it is temporary and we were never meant to live there. Because what we have waiting for us in eternity should give us an excitement for tomorrow, whatever may come, that can never equal the imperfect memory and nostalgia of yesterday.

Come Lord Jesus, and until that day may we look forward to your presence in whatever tomorrow holds, and every tomorrow until the day you take us Home.

“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” Revelation 22:20.