Nostalgia Feels like a Heart Attack

Setting the scene: Live tweeting the first few episodes of Pokèmon, a beloved childhood cartoon.

“I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was.” Heart pounding, a million memories came rushing back. Playing, fighting, video games, movies, cards, and make believe. If you are a 90s kid, you know what this song lyric is from and you probably still remember the entire song, who your favourite Pokèmon was, and what their special move was.

Watching Pokèmon for the first time after ten plus years is a unique experience, especially when you “live tweet” it. Live tweeting is to relay information about an event on twitter minute by minute as the action is happening. Laying on a university dorm bed, hard springs with a hundred memories of their own living in the fabric, two screens glare and speakers blare with the iconic song, signally the beginning of an epic adventure. My back aches, my eyes are strained, my heart pounds. All other thought escapes my mind save for mouthing the song word for word, inflection for inflection. I remembered it to a tee.

The magic of the moment is broken by my first tweet of the night. The glow of my iPhone, and focus of trying to spell everything correctly in the tweet, distracts me from the show. “The theme song to Pokèmon makes me so nostalgic, I remember being in elementary school playing with Pokèmon cards.” My third tweet followed this vein, “Does anyone remember when Pokèmon cards were banned from school? I do, and it sucked. #childhoodgrudges.” The use of hash tags (#) brings more description to your tweet in a few characters.

My heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my throat and pound my eyeballs out of my skull. Why does nostalgia hurt so much, and basically feel like a heart attack? The intense rushing memories, every twitch of Pikachu’s ears, every turn of Ash’s hat feels like an old friend embracing me in their arms with a bear hug after ten years of absence.

I can almost smell my childhood home. I can almost hear my sisters racing to name “Who’s that Pokèmon.” I can almost feel my sponge Disney chair beneath me. Instead, I have a small dusty university dorm room, that is always so hot I want to gag, and the smell of stale beer wafting from the recycling bins in the hallway is enough to make anyone sick. The contradictory tones of feeling are so intense. My heart feels like a heart attack. The safe, warm feeling of Pokèmon playing, like a long lost photograph you haven’t seen in years, as opposed to the uncomfortable feeling of everyday existence in a dorm room, eight feet by eleven feet of avocado green walls and the shouts of floor mates a constant reminder of where and when you are.   

  I’m an adult child, there are many like me, who cling to the fabric of time with vicious claws and transport themselves to a simpler era. Cartoons, songs, and Pikachu’s thunderbolt attack are the closest thing to a real-life time machine we will ever have. 

Mama Hen and her Chickies

It was my first year back in my old high school after a three year absence. I transferred high schools at the beginning of grade eight, and finally got to be back with my childhood friends in grade eleven. It was a bizarre feeling, and I felt like the new kid all over again, all awkward and being gawked at.

That fall the school decided that they would plan a school trip for anyone who wanted to go, and we got to decide the destination. I didn’t think anything of it at first; I wasn’t particularly interested in exotic travel and experiencing different cultures. My friends had other plans, and soon we were planning our Euro Trip.

Fundraiser after fundraiser ensued to help us with the traveling fees. Bake sales, auctions, baskets, and donations all helped towards helping us have the best time possible. We started in the fall and were relentless until the spring, when March break was upon us, and it was time to depart.

Eleven days, three countries, eleven girls, two chaperones, and an experience on a lifetime, Euro Trip 2007 will forever be a part of our high school memories. First stop: Italy. Being only sixteen at the time, we were psyched that the drinking age was fourteen.  We asked our guide, Glauco, where we could go clubbing.

Excitedly running around and getting ready to go out in the hotel, we were berated several times by the neighboring guest at the hotel. No matter how many times she pounded on our door, and reminded us, “I have to be up at 7am!” We didn’t care. We didn’t settle down. We couldn’t settle down even if we wanted to. We were going to the Space Electronic Discotheque on a Tuesday, and she couldn’t damper our fun.

Running from room to room borrowing headbands, necklaces, bags, shoes, dresses, anything we coveted from our friends and wanted to borrow for just a few hours.

Finally, we were ready. Dressed to impress, and getting some final words from Mr. M, our super cool junior high vice principle who sadly couldn’t go because one of the girls wanted to stay behind. Why she wanted to stay behind will remain a mystery and high school legend.

When all the girls got their final words of, “Don’t wander off with strangers,” they filed out of his hotel room to await the fleet of cabs that would take us to the Discotheque.

“One moment Joelle,” said Mr. M when everyone had left.  For a slight second I thought I was in trouble, that I couldn’t go, and my night was ruined.

“Sure Mr. M,” I squeaked in a small nervous voice. Oh man, this is it, I thought. It’s all over, I’ve messed up somehow and I can’t go out with the girls.

“I’ve noticed that you’re the most responsible one of the group, would you mind keeping an eye on everyone for me?”

My heart soared, my spirits lifted, and to this day I’ve never felt more proud to be me in my entire life. There were three other girls on the trip who were older than me; he could have asked any one of them to help keep the other girls safe. Instead,he chose me.

“Oh, and don’t let Kristina drink too much,” Mr. M chuckled with dark humour. He probably remembered that on our very first night in Italy we got a hold of a bottle of wine and some boys from Texas and drank on the roof of our hotel.

The night was an amazing success. I kept everyone’s wallets and money in my oversized, white, fake Prada bag, no one got lost, and we only suffered minor heart attacks from the Italian cabbies driving skills. I still remember him trying to relate to us by talking in minimal English about the Californian forest fire when he heard we were Canadian.

From that night on I was Mama Hen, and I’ve kept a flock of ‘Chickies’ around me that I’ve always felt responsible for, and protective of.

Harry Potter; A Love Story

It was the summer of 1999, my ninth birthday. What was originally supposed to be a double gift for my younger sister and I (our birthdays are nine days apart) became a lifelong obsession for me, and an unused birthday gift for her. Our aunt gave us the first four Harry Potter books; the most grownup books I owned to date. The first time I ever owned a book with a swear word in it (damn), and the first books I’ve read until the lamp burned out (literally, caught the lamp shade of fire one time I was so entranced).

I’ll always remember starting the Philosopher’s Stone. My older sister had a ball game under the lights, meaning it would be a night game and “too late” for me to stay up. I showed them. I started reading Harry Potter out of pure spite that night, because I honestly didn’t think that I would like it, but I was mad I couldn’t go watch the game, so I started reading. And reading. And reading.

I read until my mother and sister came home; I still remember my mom being surprised that I was still awake. I read until the book fell out of my hands, and then I woke up the next morning and read some more.   

Over the years as the books and movies have been released it brings back that initial excitement I had that first night in the summer of ’99. Almost every book and movie has been released around my birthday, maximizing my excitement. All my friends and family know about my love for the series. When I was younger a lot of my gifts had Harry Potter themes. I’ve had a Harry Potter blanket, two puzzles, candy sets, and special screening tickets of new movies.

My love is plain, even on my skin. The first tattoo I received permanently inked upon my skin was drawn by me and influenced by Harry Potter. It says “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus,” which is the Hogwarts school motto on the front page of all the books. A lot of people thought I was pretty crazy for getting it, but even more people think it’s kickass. A tattoo should mean something, and I think a thirteen (and counting) year obsessing fits the bill.

Two years ago I had the distinct honour of giving my younger cousin the full set of Harry Potter books on his ninth birthday. My aunt recently informed me that for a school project he had to bring his favourite thing to school, and he chose his books. This makes me prouder that words can express. His eleventh birthday is coming up, and I’m going to make him his very own Hogwarts acceptance letter; every wizard gets one on their eleventh birthday.

I used to be a solitary kid, and I kept to myself most of the time. I’ve always been an avid reader, and to the day I always have a book or two on the go. I’m never without a novel to read at night, and I was the same as a nine year old. I didn’t have many friends growing up, I had one best friend and I figured that was all I needed since I had a fairly large family. I read a lot in those days, and as soon as I was finished the Harry Potter series I would go right back to the first book and start them all over again. I’m fairly certain that I’ve read the first four books almost 30 times. They are as familiar to me as my own memories.

I read when I’m sad, I read when I’m bored, I read when I’m happy, mad, sleepy, excited, and depressed. The Harry Potter books are more than just words on paper; they’re an escape into another dimension where anything is possible.

My friends and I, each holding our favourite things.