The Inner Monologue

If I’m being honest, there isn’t a year I’d relive—because none of them were what I remember. Nostalgia is a magician with bad ethics; it edits the film reel, replaces harsh light with golden hour, and cuts the awkward pauses from the soundtrack. The years I think I want back never actually existed. They’re reconstructions—idealized edits assembled from scraps of emotion and selective memory.

Every time I look backward, I’m not seeing the past—I’m seeing the version of it that helps me make sense of the present. I tell myself I was freer, happier, more curious, but that’s just a story I built to survive the now. The truth is, those years were full of the same uncertainties, the same small humiliations, the same background noise of doubt. I’ve just forgotten how loud it was.

So no, I wouldn’t relive any of it. I’d rather keep moving forward through the unromantic present, where at least the moments are honest. The past is a beautifully lit stage set that collapses when you step on it. Better to let it stay that way—distant, mythic, and mercifully unrepeatable.