Nostalgia

As I got in my car after a full day of school something strange happened, a song from my childhood randomly came into my head.  This wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that I was doing absolutely nothing that should have made a mental connection with Air Supply's Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You).  Had I been thinking about a girl that would have been one thing, but I wasn't, I was thinking about an upcoming road trip to California with some friends of mine.  So here's what I think happened, I was extremely excited about all of the plans for the trip coming together, and it was that high level of excitement that put into my mind something old and nostalgic, which just so happened to be an Air Supply song.  However, the second that song came into my head the excitement quickly turned from being about California to being about an old song that I hadn't heard in years being all of the sudden in my head.  It was stuck in there so much that even as I played other music on the way home, I was still singing Air Supply, and loving every second of it.  So the real question is why in the world was I so darn happy about an old corny love song?  Of course the answer to that question is nostalgia, it reminds me of being in the back of my parents van with the whole family taking a trip to Long Island to visit relatives, of a simpler time when responsibilities didn't really exist.  Well, I started to think, does this mean that what I really want is to be a child again, living under my parents roof without any sort of a care in the world. While that does sound nice at first, the answer is a resounding NO!  Goodness I couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to be 12 again, to not be able to just leave to do what I needed to, to not be able to just drive to the store, or get home at whatever hour I please.  When I visit my parents house for a week I start to go crazy having to check in all the time and what not.  So it's not that it makes me think of a happier time, because I'm fairly certain that I'm much much happier now than I was back then.  So what is it that makes me giddy about feeling like a little kid again when I see robots fighting each other, or think of an old family favorite song?  It's probably just one of those mysteries that we may never really know the answer to, but as a scientifically minded person, that kind of crap just isn't going to cut it. So here's my hypothesis as to why such a thing happens.  It occurs because of a blending of present and past.  As the best things from the past come into the future we start to subconsciously imagine a world where childhood and adulthood blend together with all of their individual magnificences.  We briefly, but truly, live in a world where we don't have any responsibilities holding us down, but at the same time we have all of the freedom which we could ever hope to have.  The nostalgic effect is merely the mind blending all of the good it has ever known into one temporary reality, and it's absolutely awesome!