You Don’t Miss Them. You Miss Who You Were Around Them.
The strange psychology of nostalgia, old songs, and the versions of ourselves certain people bring out.
You hear an old song.
Nothing dramatic. You’re just making coffee, cleaning something you’ve been ignoring for three weeks, or pretending you’re about to start being productive.
Then that song comes on.
And suddenly, there they are.
Someone you haven’t spoken to in years.
For a moment, your brain opens a very old tab.
You remember the conversations. The stupid jokes. The places you went. The version of yourself who apparently had enough free time to stay out until 2 a.m. on a Tuesday.
And you think:
I miss them.
Maybe.
But sometimes, that’s not quite what you’re missing.
You Might Be Missing Yourself
Think about who you were around certain people.
Maybe you laughed more.
Maybe you were more spontaneous. You said yes to ridiculous plans. You called someone at midnight just because you had something stupid to say.
Maybe you were less careful about how you came across.
Maybe you were simply younger and had fewer passwords to remember.
People can bring out versions of us that don’t appear everywhere.
And when those people disappear from our lives, that version can disappear with them.
So years later, when we think about that person, it can feel like we’re longing for them.
But sometimes we’re really longing for the person we got to be around them.
Some People Are Accidental Time Machines
This is what makes nostalgia so sneaky.
A person isn’t always just a person in our memory. Sometimes they’re attached to an entire era.
That friend might remind you of your first apartment.
An ex might remind you of the version of you who thought staying awake until sunrise was a perfectly reasonable Tuesday.
An old colleague might remind you of the years when everyone went for drinks after work and nobody had discovered the phrase “I have an early meeting tomorrow.”
You don’t necessarily want that person back.
You might not even want that life back.
You just miss the feeling of being that particular you.
And our brains aren’t particularly good at separating the two.
They package the person, the place, the music, the age, the freedom and the feeling into one little emotional parcel.
Then one random Tuesday, they hand it back to you.
Enjoy.
The Funny Thing About Outgrowing People
Sometimes we assume that if we still miss someone, we must still belong with them.
Not necessarily.
You can outgrow a person and still miss who you were beside them.
You can be genuinely happy with your life and still occasionally miss an old version of it.
You can love where you are and still smile when an old song reminds you where you’ve been.
Human beings are apparently capable of holding contradictory feelings without filing the appropriate paperwork.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe You Don’t Need Them Back
Here’s the interesting part.
If what you miss is partly the version of yourself that existed around them, perhaps getting that person back isn’t the only way to find that version again.
Maybe you can become spontaneous again.
Call the friend.
Take the stupid trip.
Dance badly.
Stay out too late once in a while.
Say yes to something before your brain has time to prepare a twelve-page risk assessment.
Maybe that person didn’t create that version of you.
And that’s a much nicer thing to realize.
Because people leave.
Relationships change.
Years move on.
But the parts of ourselves we loved being around them don’t necessarily have to disappear with them.
Maybe You Never Lost That Version of You
Maybe you don’t actually need them back.
Maybe you just need to remember what they brought out in you — the ridiculousness, the confidence, the curiosity, the part of you that said yes before checking the calendar, the bank balance, or your dignity.
Because they didn’t own that version of you.
You did. You just haven’t visited in a while.
☕ Until next coffee thought,
— The Everyday Mind