I miss nostalgia
I miss those early days of university when you knew nobody and a single conversation could make you the best of friends.
I miss being a kid.
I miss being innocently scared.
I miss my old carefree nature.
I miss my brother giving me shitty haircuts.
I miss playing cops and robbers in the suburbs.
I miss the way we used to think about youth in our teens.
I miss playing basketball in the rain. The way when you made a shot through the wet net it almost hissed like a snake.
I miss rollerblading — before being told it was gay in my teens and listening.
I miss sitting with friends for coffee and the coffee shop closing, then moving on to beers.
I miss going to gigs with Will, banging our heads to songs we’d perfected the words to.
I miss when I wasn’t my worst critic.
I miss my Mum.
I miss the Gum Trees.
I miss Australia.
I miss my family and friends. Even you Laura.
I miss doing meaningful work.
I miss 90’s movies with pop-punk soundtracks.
I miss you — Blink-182.
I Miss You.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about what I Miss You means. When you google the terms and get a definition, it indicates the absence of something or someone. But it’s more than that.
It’s a deep longing for something. It’s missing something that no longer exists. Something which changed along the way. It feels like when you go drinking with your friends. But it’s not the night out you miss, it’s the following morning whilst you sit in the lounge room on the couch in your early 20s. Not one of you has a single place to be. Your true self is out on full display. Home. Chatting about the night, which then in turn transitions into chatting about the world — a couple more beers as the sun passed on a day that was both incredibly long and short.
Because I Miss you isn’t something we feel. It is part of who we are. Past versions of ourselves. Mourning parts of our lives that we once had. And will no longer experience.
I Miss You is saying I love you. Over and over and over again.
I Miss You is saying goodbye.
I Miss You is everything and nothing.
Because I Miss You is home.