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Is it still considered nostalgia if that strange sensation in your stomach resembles starving snakes devouring the proverbial butterflies? I probably could have spared myself a fall down Past Events Parkway if I'd had a decent answer at the time.

And yet, I find myself here again, digging through the old clothes, a meager disguise for the cache lying at the bottom of the drawer. As if I even needed to bother. My room is reminiscent of a museum these days: a spectacle to visitors and a giant dusty playground to the curator.

A sigh of relief gently falls through the air. I've found you again when I know with a perfect knowledge that I should have left you beneath the old jeans. I begin to sift hungrily through your words of years long dead and fading, hoping to feel some of the spark they once inspired in my tremulous spirit. A glimmer is all they can manage.

My head always swims when I recall the circumstances under which these placating words were penned. It's almost like reading letters written between two strangers rather than younger versions of ourselves. Did I really think that? Were you really that unhappy? Did we depend each other that much?

The paper has started to rip from being refolded and reopened so many times, but I can't help but resurrect you over and over again. Talking to you now lets the shadows of these notes play on the canvas of the walls, but rarely will you reemerge from the grave you've lain yourself in. That's not to say I'm saddened. No, I'm different too now. The recipient of those letters got out of town a long time ago. I never see this change in myself as altogether colossal, but it is. As much as I can't turn back the hands of the tyrannical clock, I want to even less.

But these reminders of what was seem to soften my heart. Nostalgia can be fought at first, but it gets you to that mushy vulnerable place every time. Once upon a time, I laughed at this. We both did. We knew how to make each other smile.

As I knew would happen, the glimmer starts to fade. My moment of happy remembrance is passing as I receive the blunt reminder that time's up. Reality doesn't even remotely mirror this tangle of the past anymore, and I need to put you back in your drawer. I lay you to rest once again, not knowing when I'll need to revisit your splendid bones once again. But, with the uncertainity of infirmity comes the knowledge of constancy. I might falter again, but you'll always be there to bounce me back to stasis.

I shut the drawer, pile the clothes back on top of you, and leave the museum again. It's raining outside and I need to go check the mail.