The Rose Tinted Present: What it’s like living in the good old days.

Best read while listening to Aerie by Lena Raine.

Have you played Minecraft recently? My coworkers invited me to play with them a few months ago, and it’s a strange feeling to return to a game you’ve played since you were 12.

My life has changed a lot since then, and as an adult, I look back fondly on days where my concerns were limited to building the perfect house and the science of finding diamonds.

Coming back to the game, it feels like it hasn’t changed at all. Building your first house in a new world as night approaches, or experiencing that particular brand of panic, deep in a cave when the familiar hiss of gunpowder slices through the silence.

New things are found around every corner, laced in with the old: taller mountains, deeper caves, strange items and creatures to discover. Of all the new features though, a particular song stands out above the rest.

In 2022, a track titled Aerie was added to the game alongside “The Wild” expansion. This tune stood out as being particularly… Minecraft-esque?

Minecraft has always had a nostalgic quality to it, owing largely to the wistful soundtrack, voxel-based art style, and the player’s permanent impact on the game world via the structures they build and the stories those ruins leave behind.

However, Aerie gives off a different feeling. Not quite nostalgia; it feels like doing something you’ve done a million times before for the last time, and you know it is.

The streetlights just came on, and it’s the last day of summer. Hanging out with your friends in a parking lot before leaving for college. A late night before starting a new job. Nothing’s changed yet, but it will.

It’s the feeling that time is about to start moving, whether you’re ready for it or not. It’s knowing that “the good old days” are happening right in front of your eyes. You’re here at the end, even if it looks like any other day.

Being in the midst of this feeling, I am reminded of the fun I had when I was younger. I grew up here. It’s where I made some of my best friends, and is where I’m potentially making new ones!

Unlike nostalgia, this new emotion takes heed of time’s scarcity as it slips away right in front of our eyes and pushes us to hold on to the moment for just a little longer.

Just one more game.

Just one more minute.

Just one more time.

We talk for hours after there’s nothing left for us to say. And then we say goodbye.

Even if I never play Minecraft again, I was fortunate enough to experience it with a fresh pair of eyes. One day, when I have forgotten the game entirely and it’s faded into the annals of my mind, I’ll be alright with that. The friends I made along the way — both old and new — and I will have found newer, more fulfilling things to fill that pickaxe-shaped hole in our hearts.

So thank you to all of the things I have loved and have forgotten with time, perhaps never to be rediscovered again. If they are though, and the spark just isn’t quite there anymore, that’s alright — I’m not 12 anymore. Life isn’t about homework or video games, and it certainly isn’t about finding the perfect place to build a house, but it’s nice to be reminded that amidst all of the moving parts of adult life bearing down seemingly all at once, a nice view can take your mind off of things. At least for a while.

And it shows that the good times didn’t suddenly stop one day when you logged off of your favorite game for the last time, or the last time you spoke with someone you love, or ate at your favorite restaurant. They’re still there, and even if new loves have filled the spaces they left, the particular shape of love you shared with that thing, activity, or person is still there, either as a reminder of the light life has to offer, or as a home for those people, places, and things to return to.

Minecraft is not the same game I played as a child, nor I that same child. So, if time and circumstance grants me the gift to play just one more time I’ll soak in every second. You never know when those street lights are coming on, so play while you can. Don’t worry though — when they do come on, and everyone has gone their separate ways into the twilight — you and everyone/thing you’ve shared your life with will always have a funny, love-shaped home to return to. They will with me, anyways.

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Authors Note: Maison sent me a link to an article which highlights the not quite nostalgia feeling I reference throughout this blog. Give it a read to learn about “anticipatory” vs “anticipated” nostalgia.