It's a now or never kind of deal

"A sentimentalist", Oscar Wilde wrote, "is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it."

Nostalgia meaning "homecoming" for a period or place with happy personal associations.

I am not a sentimental girl. If you want to see the soft side of me, you have to catch me off guard. I'm a rather realistic person. Keeping my feet on the ground to face what's in front of me even when my head wants to float away with the clouds. Part of it is because of my ethnic make up. Part of it is my upbringing. I think it may hold its ties to my mother’s alcoholism.

She would drink herself to such an oblivion, captivating her mind on a reminiscent rerun about a past that never truly existed. Her distorted view warped by her drunken daze. Falling deeper and deeper into a world of make belief. Making herself completely unavailable to the reality in front of her, which included us children. Estranging herself from us. Which still beat the few times where she would get intoxicated while angry. Drinking herself into enough courage to lash out hatefully at a reality that she was unable to cope with. Which again included us children.

I do tend to give in to nostalgia at times. Certain scents or sounds that trigger the memory of a feeling or a place. Every time I leave work, taking the stairs instead of the elevators, that specific scent in the stairwell takes me back to the basements of my mother country. Something about basements, what can I say.