That Takes Me Back Essay Example

Nostalgia can be a powerful memory. If we smell a distinct scent, or see the right sequence of events, suddenly our whole bodies might be tingling with memory. We are transported to a time before. Whether the memory is good, bad, happy, sad, simplistic, or complicated, we seldom have control over when our brains decide to cloud our thoughts in such a powerful recollection. While I have several triggers that ignite a sense of nostalgia with me, one in particular is a smell. The smell of stale pizza and Gatorade always reminds me of the time I spent in high school, specifically the many hours I spent talking with friends in the Cafeteria
Many things could remind me of high school. Songs that were popular at the time, photos of my first car, or my friends, and even names of my old haunts all remind me of the time I spent there. However, few things remind me of my high school and the time I spent there explicitly. In fact, I have few memories of the time I spent in high school, but one that has stuck with me is the many lunch hours I spent with friends in the cafeteria. Typically, we would have different class schedules, and sometimes would not see each other all day, even between classes because of these schedules. The cafeteria, however, was a place where we all met at the same time. Our lunches never varied; it was always the same stale pizza and Gatorade. These smells of bread, pepperoni, and liquid fruit wafted into my nose as I shared the highs and lows of my day with my friends, attempting to make it through the most difficult of my formative years. Little did I know at the time that, even years later, these scents would still remind me of the time I shared in the cafeteria with my friends.
Today, if I smell Gatorade or stale pizza, I am immediately transported back to a loud, boisterous cafeteria. Once again, I am an insecure, but excited teenager, eager to see their friends. I see the entirety of the cafeteria, and even feel the dread of eating the same stale pizza and drinking the same blue Gatorade. At the time, I was so tired of those tastes and smells. Today, when I come across them the nostalgia is so strong I almost long for them. It takes me a moment to realize I am not longing for the pizza or the Gatorade, but rather the experience. I hear my friends laughing, or sighing discontentedly about our math teacher who always seemed to choose to give us homework before holiday breaks. I remember talking about crushes we had, or making plans to skip last period on Fridays in hopes of starting the weekend early. While we were still technically only children, I remember the feeling of freedom. Those smells emanated around me as my friends and I attempted to act as we were grown up. It is ironic now, as I remember it. We were acting like adults in one of the most childish settings possible, eating one of the most childish lunches possible.
I do not remember why we never deviated from those lunches. Perhaps we did, and I do not recall. The majority of the time, however, we ate the pizza and Gatorade. The smell of processed, stale fruit, old mashed bread, and tomato sauce wafted around us as my best friend was called from the cafeteria to be suspended for the first time. Then the second time. The smells were there when they were eventually called from the cafeteria to be expelled. Over these lunches, after the expulsion, the smells were there as we discussed what had gone so wrong with our friend and how we had not noticed. We chatted over pizza if it was possible for those things to go wrong with us, and if we would say anything to one another if such a thing would happen. My friend’s family sent them away after the expulsion, and contact was brief. The smell of pizza and Gatorade reminds me of the sadness we shared during our lunches as we remembered the hole my friend left in our group, as well as how we tried to make sense of life outside of high school. As I mentioned, over these smells and these lunches, we pretended to be so grown up. But it was also over these smells, and throughout these lunches that we learned there was a bigger, wider world than we could imagine outside the walls of our cafeteria, as well as our school. We were mere high school students. Therefore, the smell of stale pizza and Gatorade also reminds me of how sometimes, it is better to remain where you are, remain a child, protected and ignorant to what can happen when you act like an adult before you are ready.
In sum, though not all-powerful memories linked to nostalgia are wholly happy, many have a lesson. When you are a child, even a teenager, you are unaware of these memories embedding themselves in your mind. When I recall my time in high school, or the memories brought to my mind at the smell of a high school lunch, I am reminded of the safety high school can offer, as well as the camaraderie offered by friends during that time. More importantly, I am reminded of how quickly that can disappear. Everything seemed so simple for us during our lunches; we thought we knew so much. Then, as my friend was suspended and later expelled, we realized we did not know as much as we thought. We never learned what ultimately resulted in my friend’s expulsion, only that we were not as grown as we thought we were. When I recall this part of my high school career, I may become slightly depressed with nostalgia and sadness for my friend. Despite that, I am able to recognize the subtlety with which those scents now trigger my memory recall. Because of this, I can employ the same technique to learn new information as I continue my education. Things did not go as planned for friend. Truthfully, things did not go as I thought they would for me, but I can always let the scent of stale pizza and Gatorade remind take me back to a simpler time when I thought no other way was possible.