Is Nostalgia a Privilege?: Another Conversation Between Friends

Some undergraduate seniors leave their alma mater with certainty. Grace Ki Rivera ’26 leaves with curiosity.

It’s a little past 11:30 on a Sunday morning in March 2026, and my name is called. We are trying to grab brunch at First Watch in Williamsburg, Va. The four of us dodge and weave our way through the church crowd spilling in from the street. We each make a beeline to the corner table, tucked away by the window. I’m the first to sit, and by the time we are all in our chairs, we are laughing like we just won the lottery. 

Over the last three years, we’ve spent so much time together, I don’t think I will ever be able to count the minutes, the hours. We have dinner together almost every night. We have new shows to watch and discuss, new restaurants to try, and new conversations to stretch across multiple days and multiple places. Some of these conversations continued at this very same First Watch, moving from table to table. ​

Sitting here, I know just how rare it is to have people like this in your life. People whose presence feels effortless. Being together is routine in a way that doesn’t really feel like one. Something that feels so much like second nature that you don’t even think about — until you have to. This is the last time we will all be together for a while.

They’re a year out of college, and I’m in my last, one of the many reminders of just how fast time moves. At this point in the semester, I know I am supposed to write this article you’re reading now — Hey, Reader! — but in all honesty, I was clueless on where to start. So, naturally, I turned to the people whose opinions I trust most. I bring up a quote I found in my research between bites of a chocolate chip pancake and sips of iced coffee: “Nostalgia is proof that we’ve lived a life worth living. What a privilege it is to yearn for your own memories.”  I look at my friends before asking, “What do you guys think?” 

They each take a turn:​

“I think it can be a privilege to look back on your fond memories and remember the feeling of being in those moments,” Eloise Griffin ’25 says.

Erin Bronlow ’25 shrugs ,“Nostalgia goes hand-in-hand with grief. Like in that Taylor Swift song ... ‘Nostalgia is a mind’s trick / If I’d been there, I’d hate it.’”

Sanjoli Jain ’25 shakes her head slightly and reaches for her fork. “Nostalgia’s a fickle thing,” she says, half to herself.

We all laugh a little — partly at the word “fickle,” and partly at how quickly we all recognize the truth in it.​

After a beat, Eloise pipes up once more, “You can feel nostalgic for moments that haven’t even passed.”

At this moment, I can’t quite place it, but I recognize the feeling. I know that none of this will feel the same again. It’s not quite doom, but there’s a fatalistic weight to it — not excitement, but a strange sense of opportunity in the awareness that time is slipping. I want to remember every detail. I want to remember what Erin ordered because I secretly wished I had ordered it. I want to remember the chatter of people who sat next to us. Some things have already started to fade: whether or not Sanjoli ordered juice, what we wore, and who was the last to get up from the table.

Writing this now — Hey, again! — I keep going back to that table, wondering what it would have felt like if I hadn’t known it was ending. What would I have been feeling? Why did I feel the need to hold onto the moment before it was over? Why did I need to archive it, replay it, and return to it later? To turn it into something I can look back on, something I can understand better in hindsight? 

Is it a privilege to feel this way, to have something worth returning to? Or is it just a reminder that moments don’t stay long enough for us to fully live inside them?

It’s a little past 11:30 on a Friday morning in late August of 2022, and I remember the heat. I remember the exhaustion, the music everywhere, and the seemingly never-ending energy from our hall’s Orientation Aides. Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” loops on my OAs’ shared speaker. My new friend, Gigi, introduced everyone in our hall to “Kitchen” by Kid Cudi. (I’m forever in her debt.) The first time stepping into Kaplan Arena and feeling small in the best possible way. Everything was new. Everything demanded my attention. 

New Student Orientation was about learning the campus and getting a sense of the place that would be our home for the next four years, but it was also when I met some of the friends who have stayed with me ever since.

Even now, when I hear “Bad Habit” on the radio, I am back with my friends in the Yates Hall lounge. I grab coffee or lunch with Gigi and we reminisce on our first year of undergrad. Suddenly, it’s one of the scorching end-of-summer days and I’m walking up the hill that leads to our hall (also known as the “Yill”). ​

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the moment I was dropped in my dorm room, those five days that followed were already fleeting. My freshman self wasn’t thinking about a future me wanting to remember every moment from this handful of days; I was just trying to take it all in, to absorb every detail, every sound and laugh, every name and face. 

The feeling of nostalgia is the same, and yet, I don’t remember orientation the same way I remember that brunch in March. This was the feeling I hoped to create for others and recreate for myself when I decided I wanted to be an Orientation Aide. ​

When I found out that I had gotten the coveted position a little past noon on that early April Friday in 2023, to say I was excited would be an understatement. Suddenly, I was going to be a part of the magic that had welcomed me into the campus just a few months before. 

Now, when I see the old hat tucked away or the neon shirts folded on the shelf in my closet, I’m immediately transported back to those five days in 2023. The friendship bracelets scattered in my drawer remind me of those afternoons in the lounge, making them for one another. And whenever I hear “Take On Me” by A-ha or “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa, I can’t help but remember “Cheers To Your First Year,” dances performed under the Zable Stadium lights and the looks on the students’ faces.​

Maybe the privilege of nostalgia is the ability to miss and yearn for a time that we didn’t even know was important? Or maybe it’s noticing what mattered only after it’s gone?

Sitting at that First Watch table three years later, I think I understood something I didn’t back then. Not completely, but enough to recognize it while it was happening.

That’s the closest thing I have to an answer: The privilege of nostalgia is not just looking back; it’s knowing how to be present while we’re still here.