Doctor, Doctor! The fits and fades memory

Oh, Barry Gordon, how I love to see you fox trotting there with that beautiful young lady dressed in that white dress, with a handmade bow across her chest. What, he’s here already? ‘Lou Ann, Barry’s here!’ Mom, mom stall, my bow is not ready. Got to hurry, got to hurry. Dear Lord, Barry Gordon is here! Ah! I’ll remember this night my whole life. How do I look? ‘Stunning.’ Oh, marvelous!

Doctor, doctor, Barry’s not there anymore. Where’d he go?

Lou Ann, dear, calm yourself. Please, for your sake. What are we going to do with Lou Ann? Well, it won’t be easy. It’s the Nostalgia. It afflicts the frontal cortex, the storehouse for long term memories. Nostalgia comes in slowly, throughout the fading years of ones social life. No matter the age, Nostalgia gets the best of those who are unable to create new, memorable experiences. It can be tricky too; it leaks memories by sedating them in yesteryear, which trances them into a storied and gloried past. Whether it’s a love interest, usually their first, or their childhood memories, one thing is always present: innocence. The best thing to collude the mind is the age of innocence. Not knowing any better is the best state; you’re without fault, while residing in surrounding tumult.

Sally, the sock hop’s at one tomorrow, want to come? Yeah, Daniel Heely is going to be there. No, he has not asked Gertrude yet and I don’t think he will. Don’t worry, you’re set! As for me, Barry will pick me up around noon.

Shh! Here, she’s glided back to her high school days. We can assume her boyfriend at the time was this “Barry Gordon”. She has brought him up the last few days. In order to alleviate Nostalgia we need to find what triggers these illusions of the past. Usually, pictures immediately make the neurons run. Old clothes, or even parallel stories – say, Lou Ann’s granddaughter is being courted by her first boyfriend. The problem would be simple, if not for memories being primed for our existence. If we have no recollection of the past, our current state would be constantly in Amnesia. We need a fair balance between Amnesia and Nostalgia.

Most individuals teeter on each extreme; from the remorseful and resentful to the forgetful and oblivious, people seek a delusion. This delusion carries them onto the next day. Those who are amnesiacs, achieve greater levels of clarity and happiness when they perpetually lock and close out the past. Soon it becomes habit. The woman, in this case, Lou Ann, is devoid of any form of an authentic grasp of life’s adventure. She married her high school sweet heart, was a house wife and relives the past like there’s only yesterday. For both, life’s a daily adventure: clinging onto the past or running from it.

Now what can we do for Lou Ann’s Nostalgia? Well, she’s terminal. Nostalgia has taken over the control center – Fonz is her rebel, not River Phoenix and he’s telling her happy days are here. Realism, the body’s natural state, is not responding. We can try to give her a dose of the extra-strength reality, Michael Moore. She must take this Moored reality with a grain of salt, or else… a spastic case of pre Brown v Board of Education will occur. After that, the frail, former self, representing your mother, will become completely senile, the present day Peter O’Toole. Bowel movements will go and the heart will beat slower and slower, mirroring the current US economy.

Nostalgia is Death’s top trading partner. Nostalgia gets to invade and wallow. Death’s eminent domain assumes its iron fist; she will see the light, the end. At this end, she will go back to beginning of the tunnel, rewinding those oh, so precious moments. Death will take Lou Ann’s hand. They know each other, though. She’s entrusted Death for the last 43 years. It’s just this time, Death will rip her heart out in the gentlest way ever, her last thought will be, “The End”. The happy story is done. For Death, it’s all in a days work. Lou Ann never knew Death’s true intentions. It was better that way.

Henceforth, there is nothing we can or should do. Lou Ann’s mental wherewithal and capacity chose delusion years ago. It has, in fact, kept her alive; without this séance, she would have sunk from reality’s uproarious tidal shifts. We all live a lie. Some choose to believe in it more than others. Nostalgia correctly assumes its stranglehold upon all of us, mind you. Lou Ann exemplifies a sect of people that revel in the past. They say, “My years are past me.” Oh contrare monfrare the days are only ahead; defeat never exists. The battle for existence still lasts until your last breath, and if you stop fighting before that, well then my friend, you may already be dead.