Ghosts weren't my thing. Spiders were pushovers and I was secretly in love with our family dentist. Blood reminded me of Ribena and I would do my detective work in the dark. As a child I was pretty fearless — worried, though. Worried as heck. So what kept me up at night?

Simple. What if everything didn't stay exactly the same?

Everything was already as fine as it should be. TV was awesome, my friends were hilarious and telephones would look weird anywhere else but attached to a cord at the bottom of my stairs. Convinced of immortality and a stranger to death, the idea of development seemed pointless. Oh, the good old days.

Obviously, this all disappeared with age. Technology boomed and everything became easier. Close ones passed away and I learnt the practicality of moving on. I was dancing the tango of change and ‘Brand Spanking New!’ was engrained. This is what I call the lull-point in every nostalgic millennial’s lifetime- the point where appealing to the masses meant being normal. But soon after normal meant being un-cool. Next came The Buzzcocks, Nike jackets and Salinger. Next came charity shops and vinyls.

Next came nostalgia.

My grandparents look happy in old black and white photos- young, smiling and posing with their other young, smiling friends. The tattered ones hold the most value to them and demand the most care. I wanted this. Whether it’s with an old Pentax or through a Photoshop filter, I craved a ‘Faux-Vintage Photograph’. Now thanks to apps like Instagram and AfterLight every millennial now has the opportunity to mirror their grandparent’s smiles. Whether attempting to grasp the ‘authentic’ or simply giving into a retro trend, I was experiencing ‘nostalgia for the present’.

Next came reminiscing.

The transition from kid-TV to adult-TV was never very smooth. The Simpsons has been with me since 1990. South Park is brilliant and disgusting all at once. Adventure Time is still the trippiest thing my friends and I ever watched at university. A lot of nostalgic millennials probably spend way too much time watching cartoons directly or indirectly created for adults, and the huge success of Seth MacFarlane and AdultSwim’s growing audience has made it more and more acceptable. Its official, Spongebob Squarepants has created a generation of weirdoes.

Next came the revivals.

Out with the old and in with the older. Obsessed with individualism growing up I would regularly snub the brand-new in hope that I was distancing myself from the masses. Sure the old would never really be ‘unique’, but I would happily settle for the ‘original’ in the meantime. What started as a personal fad soon turned into a quest for meaning, and with a few exceptions from the spoken word and grime genres, popular music failed again and again at providing me with a purpose or direction. The Sex Pistols pissed off while the angry youth remained. Bob Dylan’s protest songs grew quiet while the London riots burnt buildings down. Movements have no place on Radio 1.

Next came acceptance.

Spoiler alert — things didn't stay exactly the same as they did when I was a child. For better or for worse millennials are, like every other generation, a product of their time; different to every other generation that has come before. However, the ‘nostalgic millennial’ combines what is with what was and even uses new technology to access parts of the past they feel are missing from their future (god bless the Internet, god bless every 80's funk discography).

The nostalgic millennial isn't hard to find. They’re dancing at a Northern Soul night, smoking their grandfathers tobacco pipe and beating every high score on a Nintendo 64. They’re learning the harmonica, in love with Audrey Hepburn and won’t part with their leather bound journal. They are the time travellers trying to fit some of the past in the future. Why? Because some things just shouldn't be forgotten.