Once, I stopped walking to look at the sky during sunset. It was close to 6pm, but the canvas above was still blue with sporadic white clouds. I was alone, taking a break from my habitual long walks. I didn’t care about the cars passing by on the wide road next to me. I craned my neck and stayed there for a minute until I took a deep breath and sighed.
I didn’t have anything going on. I was a student on a holiday break. I looked forward to wearing my unwashed clothes to tour them around the familiar places until I was back to school again. The empty streets and quiet neighborhoods, except for the kids in the playground at the park and the occasional horns from the speeding cars. Rough, cemented pavements scratched the sole of my years-old shoes. My phone didn’t buzz with texts, calls, or emails. There weren’t any deadlines or quotas looming at the back of my mind, and I got to see natural light before the night fell.
But I felt stagnant, I remember. I was in a limbo that I couldn’t get out of: I woke up, went to school, tried to listen to the professors, tried to socialize, went home, ate dinner, slept. It felt like crawling from the hole I myself dug, and one of the few activities that made me feel I could push through the day was taking long walks in the late afternoon as I enjoyed the folk music playing in my headphones, the stillness around me, the foreign neighborhood I grew to learn how to appreciate, the local shops I started to recognize.
Sometimes, I draw this version of myself in my memory, and I reach out to him. I hold his hand, and I look at his eyes. For a moment, before the time I live in takes me back with it, I borrow the peace of mind he bears and leave the rest with him.
How about you: what makes you feel nostalgic?
If you like this story, you may want to read:
I spent a day in Coimbra and discovered parts of the city (and myself)
Matthew Burgos 
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