Those Mid-May Blues

These past few days in May, for some reason, have provoked a certain nostalgia in me, for reasons I can't quite rationalize. (Well, yes, granted: nostalgia generally isn't to be rationalized. But here even the cause of the nostalgia is a mystery. Perhaps it's the weather?) I find myself looking back on my salad days—fully behind me, I assume—with a certain wistfulness. Why? Certainly not because I was happier; indeed, I was far more morose, if not melancholisch, back in high school. I suppose it's the callowness that I miss. I was less aware, then, of how many problems there are out there in the world.

Dear, if I feel such nostalgia at the age of twenty-three, what shall I do at forty-three? How many more realities can I face before becoming either irreparably cynical or inescapably escapist?