Nostalagia

That word evokes so many feelings, sadness at lost innocence, a longing to be back with my parents both no longer with me, missed opportunities, mistakes that i made in my life that make me feel nostalgic for the old days and the longing to restart my life over. I dont have any nostalgic feeling of happiness as my life has not turned out how i would have wanted it.

Bit of both I think. Sadness and happiness too.

I so agree Willow. Some smells just catapult me back to certain places. No thinking, just instant memories. I always enjoy this but with a twinge of sadness too.

I don't understand why I feel nostalgic about things from my childhood, which wasn't emotionally happy.
Garden plants are a case in point and possessions from the childhood home.
I think it's a sadness for what might have been. I had that overwhelming sensation when my mother died.

Sometimes happy sometimes sad memories but on the whole being happily thinking of times and people long gone.

I think the description homesickness for a place you can never return to sums it up perfectly for me - not necessarily even a place - a time may be better. I used to get memory triggers from smells too - chrysanthemums would bring an instant recall of my mum and a big vase of them at Christmas. Those triggers are another loss with anosmia. I was once interviewed by someone studying it and this was one of the things she was most interested in - being transported back in time by a smell

Thanks for link Annie - it is definitely a great description for a word we don't have.

Alexia. There are two songs ie 'A certain time, a certain place' and 'The things we did last summer' that reduce me to tears. They bring back memories of my not. necessarily young days, but of the person I shared them with.

Richard Burton often spoke of hiraeth and came back often with his different wives.

I couldn’t move to Lincolnshire because I could never leave Wales, the mountains, coast line, rivers, lakes, South Wales valleys, the accents, but it also means many generations who I never knew, so it means I would lose me !

But nostalgia is not what it once was!

Funnily enough I read an article only yesterday by Kate Humble describing hiraeth as a longing to return to Wales, her homeland. It was advertising a forthcoming TV programme I think.

Music evokes memories for me, my nostalgia times are listening to 60s music, those innocent times in my teens. I do look back with great fondness over my life but tinged with sadness for family members no longer alive.

I don't yearn for "the good old days" as times have changed, the carefree days of my childhood no longer exist for my DGSs

To me there is "fond remembrance" of happy times - and then there is nostalgia which is different and actually hurts in a very poignant way. Pleasant memories gone forever...like a loss.
Robert Burns poem/song "Ye banks and braes" sums it up for me. He knew the feeling.

"Ye'll break my heart ye warbling birds
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn
Ye mind me o' departed joys
Departed never to return " ........to the music..... aaaaargh, unbearably sad.

I never worry about not dwelling on things though but just very occasionally do have a good old wallow in it. No point in denying our emotions.... then hey-ho. on with the show!

Happy Memories - but with a tinge os sadness for things past.

Definitely happy memories: of childhood, parents, teenage years, early days of marriage and parenthood, places where I have worked and people I have worked with, family holidays and later holidays with just the two of us. Very few bad ones, I am very lucky and it’s good to be reminded of it, thank you Alexa.

Happy memories/ Hiraeth

Not at all.

Very happy memories, when I look back, ok there have been the odd grim moments but by and large I have had a GREAT life and am very nostalgic for school, my working life, even my older girlfriends although I have been happily married for almost fifty years.

No whilst I probably couldn’t spell it without a dictionary (doesn’t THAT date me!) nostalgia is a warm cosy feeling

I agree with F55. Pretty much says it all.

Yes Hiraeth sums it up for me.

To me it’s anything that evokes happy memories of days gone by .... like Fennel said, music does this for me plus looking at old photos .... also, listening to my 3 AC reminiscing about their childhood and the many funny stories. I was always trying new recipes on them and it was years before they told me that many of my dinners ended up in the duck pond when I wasn’t looking !

Teetime, I hope you find some sort of happiness in the present. I could quote the gypsy in Romany Rye.

“There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?”

Yes, Anniebach, that too. Childhood was so innocent and magical.

For me it's mostly music, which brings back memories. There's a french radio programme called Nostalgie that plays all the oldies from the 60s & 70s et.
Sometimes looking at old photos gives the same feeling, but at the moment I don't yearn for the 'Good Old Days', and family members.
Maybe I'm a hard hearted Hannah.

All sad for me and I have to work hard not to dwell and think about what might have been. Sorry I know that's not helpful.

A longing for childhood ?