Nostalgia November
The bright side of pandemic Thanksgiving
23 is an odd age. A lot of my friends work alongside people in their 60s. Some of my friends make more than most people in their 60s. Some moved to Europe to have affairs with men in their 60s. Some people I know are married, some have babies, and some got married because they had a baby. Many of my friends live at home and still hide weed from their parents. Others live at home and smoke weed with their parents. Some of my friends are in the military, leading other soldiers who are even younger than them. Some are in the Israeli military, shooting people who are much, much younger than them.
23 is an odd age. I’m not a kid. I don’t feel like an adult. I had a doctor’s appointment this week. My mom didn’t have to schedule it for me, but I still needed to ask her for my entire medical history. She didn’t come with me, but I called her right after to ask what to do next. I’m not a teen, I’m not in college, and I’m no longer nubile. What porn category do I belong to anymore? Romantic?
November is the official month of wondering about getting old for people who are not actually old. The young adult’s autumn Angst-A-Thon really starts one day early, on October 31st. Halloween is the anniversary of most people’s first time ever feeling old: that seventh grade Halloween when you suspected you might be aging out of trick-or-treating. That eighth grade Halloween when you stopped. That ninth grade Halloween when you gave out the candy.
The next day, the 1st, Nostalgia November begins in earnest. You start wearing hoodies, especially that really old one from a high school sports team or summer camp, with shredded strings you still chew on, that’s been worn and washed so many times that it feels like arts-and-crafts felt. With each passing year it becomes more impossible to throw out. The leaves turn and fall and crunch so loudly under your footsteps that you can hear them over the Red-era Taylor Swift in your headphones.
It gets cold. The air gets crispy and smells like having a crush. The days grow shorter, and you wrack your brain to remember if the sun actually set this early last year. There’s no way, right? (Chazzy’s Note: This is one of the two major reasons I never want to move to Los Angeles. It’s too hard to be wistful when it’s hot and sunny. Second reason is that you have to drive a lot and I’m prone to road rage.) When I was in high school, a girl told me you should never text someone you like when the sun is out because it’s not romantic. I followed that rule for years after and always thought autumn made things, logistically speaking, much easier.
Nostalgia November peaks on the fourth Wednesday of the month, the day before Thanksgiving. You’re on the Megabus. You close your book or shut your laptop. You press your face against the window and watch America streaking by. You breathe in the formaldehyde odor wafting out of the bathroom, feel the cold plastic against your cheek, and it hits you. You’re going home. And you think about the last time you were home, and how much has changed since then, how much you’ve changed, while “home” stayed the same.
When I was 19, Thanksgiving rattled me. The actual day was nice, seeing family and eating good food. But the Wednesday before and long weekend after were minefields. Catching up with old friends just proved how few and fraying those friendships were. Football games and nights at a local bar turned into impromptu one-year high school reunions, replete with awkward chit-chat and weird self-consciousness about impressing people I didn’t give two shits about. Returning to my parents’ house came with the uncomfortable realization that we were completely unused to living together.
As I age, Thanksgiving gets better. Wednesday night at the bar belongs to a new generation of high school graduates. A few lifelong friends remain, while the rest have faded into pleasant acquaintances. If I happen to run into them, it is nice to say hi. Staying in my childhood bedroom is fun now. The Tintin poster and paintings of outer space would look cool in my apartment, in a vintage, ironic sort of way. The mattress is better than my shitty one from Overstock.com. Hanging out with my parents, drinking wine, and watching Law and Order is kinda fun.
That’s why I’m looking forward to pandemic Thanksgiving. We will all be spared the indignity of hometown house parties. The washed-up varsity athletes and McConaughey-in-Dazed and Confused perverts will still hold their superspreader events. But, the hacking Covid cough might remind them of their Juul-induced popcorn lung glory days. Plus, after spending most of this year quarantined together, my parents and I have figured out a pretty good rapport. I am looking forward to playing our Antiques Roadshow drinking game.
Most importantly, we will all avoid the most political, argumentative, and unpleasant Thanksgiving dinner ever. It will be nice not to know which relatives are living in real-virus-Biden-won world and which are in fake-virus-Trump-won. We can just check Facebook to find out which cousin is Stopping The Steal. Grandma gets to go another year without knowing the finer details of Bed-Stuy’s sexual mutual aid scene. Nobody’s going to ask you about your pointless major, or how the job hunt’s going, or if you have a girlfriend. All the better, I say. In a year where everything’s changed, I’m happy not to think about how much I have.