Is Nostalgia Just Grief With Better Lighting?

At midlife, I’m learning that looking back might be the only way to move forward

Eric Spitznagel,

AARP

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Published January 09, 2026

an illustration shows an older adult man hugging the specter of a fallen friend. Behind him is a night sky full of stars, with his walking across the astral plane

The difference between nostalgia and grief is whether you're visiting the past or trying to move back in.

Lily Qian

I was at a funeral recently for a high school friend who died of colon cancer at age 56. During the memorial, one of his sons got up and sang for his departed dad, and his song selection nearly destroyed me: Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” I’d been doing fine until then. But then that memorable melody hit — especially the “hey, hey, hey, heeeeey” part — and suddenly I wasn’t a middle-aged dude in a black suit. I was 17, hunched behind a steering wheel that smelled of Armor All and French fries, certain the world was waiting with bated breath for my next move.

I cried for my friend, of course. And I cried for the kid who used to blast that song with the windows down, the one who thought grief was something that only happened to grandparents and movie characters. The tears braided together, and I felt a backward tug pull me toward homesickness for a place that no longer existed. Nostalgia, with a side of real grief. Or maybe grief wearing an old varsity jacket, pretending to be nostalgia so it could sneak in the door.

I’ve reached the age where the calendar contains funerals. Over the last nine months, I’ve hugged too many bereaved sons and daughters, called too many spouses to ask what I can bring. And afterward, I go home and scroll the soundtrack of my life like a conveyor belt. I’m not trying to relive high school; I’m trying to remember how to be a person who knows what comes next.

Sometimes it feels like looking back is pushing me forward. And there’s science that suggests I’m not wrong. Psychologist Clay Routledge, who leads the Archbridge Institute’s Human Flourishing Lab in Washington, D.C., has spent years studying nostalgia. And he has found that it often enhances our sense that life has meaning.

“In the aftermath of a funeral, nostalgia gives people the opportunity to reinforce connections with other loved ones by talking about shared memories,” Routledge says. “It also allows us to honor our relationship with that lost loved one.”

Krystine Batcho, a psychologist at Le Moyne College who developed the Nostalgia Inventory, a scientific instrument for measuring this stuff, puts it more precisely: “Healthy nostalgia finds connection between the past and the present. That connection strengthens the appreciation for what remains the same in the face of loss and change.”

She’s not talking about replaying the highlight reel. She’s talking about remembering who showed up, which reframes my relistening routine as a legitimate strategy, not mere sentimentality. I’m not looking for lost time. I’m looking for evidence that I knew how to navigate loss before, and that the people who helped me do it are still around, or at least were real.

Why nostalgia is bittersweet

That doesn’t mean nostalgia is all warm light and vinyl crackle. It’s famously bittersweet. But a 2025 study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications found that nostalgia can soothe real psychic hurt, acting as a kind of analgesic, especially when other resources are scarce — which sounds exactly like grief triage to me.

Here’s what’s actually happening when that song hits. Psyche Loui, a neuroscience researcher at Northeastern University who studies music and emotion, explains that music doesn’t stay in the auditory cortex; it immediately engages the hippocampus (which supports autobiographical memory), and the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (which tag those memories with emotion and personal meaning). “Songs are especially powerful,” she says, “because they’re multisensory and time-locked.”

When you’re 17 and that song is playing, your brain isn’t just encoding the melody. It’s encoding the rhythm, the timbre, the people you were with, how you felt, what was happening in your social life, possibly the exact smell of Armor All. Those elements get bundled together and stored as a single package. Years later, hearing the song again reactivates that whole network. Loui calls music “a neural shortcut” that cues stored memories more completely, more quickly and with a stronger emotional charge than deliberate recall.

In other words, when that kid sang at his father’s funeral, I wasn’t choosing to be 17 again. My auditory cortex was following established neural pathways, my hippocampus was pulling up the full sensory file, my amygdala was adding the emotional tags, and grief — opportunistic bastard that it is — hitched a ride on the whole convoy.

When I replay the old mixtapes, I’m not trying to dodge sorrow. I’m using familiar routes to navigate it. A chorus can be a handrail.

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an illustrated collage shows the outline of a male head. Inside the head, three friends are walking into a golden sunset. Surrounding the head are a plethora of cassette tapes unspooling

When nostalgia works, it makes you want to call someone who was there, or who you wish had been.

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When nostalgia sours

Still, there’s a trapdoor here. Nostalgia can curdle into what psychologists have dubbed “nostalgic depression,” that aching sense that the best has passed and the present is a lesser knockoff. The difference is whether you’re visiting the past or trying to move back in.

Andrew Abeyta, a psychology professor at Rutgers University who studies nostalgia, distinguishes between healthy reminiscence and rumination this way: “Rumination involves a more negative focus, and too much of it can lead to persistent sadness and depression. In contrast, nostalgia’s focus is more a mix of sadness and happiness, loss and gratitude.”

He compares it to the difference between a celebration of life and a traditional funeral. At a celebration of life, people tell stories, laugh, drink and play the deceased’s favorite music. There’s sadness, sure, but it’s mixed with gratitude and joy, a recognition that the person was here, that their life mattered, that we were lucky to know them. At a funeral, the focus stays locked on the hole the person left behind.

“Nostalgia often involves expressing a sense of sadness, loss and longing. But these nostalgic reminiscences usually end on a positive note,” Abeyta says. “Sadness gives way to happiness and appreciation for the time spent with the deceased and the impact the deceased has had on their life.”

Abeyta’s research shows that healthy nostalgia “inspires more positive emotions than negative ones, promotes a sense of meaning in life and belonging, and motivates people to want to build satisfying and meaningful connections, like the ones they have lost.”

Routledge makes a similar distinction: “Nostalgia doesn’t tend to lead to unhealthy rumination but can be a way to reduce it by helping balance negative emotions like sadness, regret and social disconnection with more positive feelings such as gratitude, meaning, and hope.” Nostalgia and rumination are opposites, he says, not cousins. One opens doors, and the other nails them shut.

Nostalgia should make you want to do something — call an old friend, write a letter or show up for someone the way people once showed up for you. If it’s just making you sad that things aren’t like they used to be, that’s not nostalgia. That’s rumination wearing a nostalgia mask.

Or, as I’m learning, it’s about whether I use the past as a refuge or a resource. Refuge says stay. Resource says bring what you found.

Last month, I drove past my old high school and almost pulled over to walk the halls. Then I realized I didn’t need to see the building. I needed to call Mike, who sat behind me in AP English and whom I haven’t talked to since his dad’s funeral, two years ago. Refuge would be parking that car. Resource was picking up the phone.

an illustration shows an older adult male driving down the highway, one hand on the wheel, the other on a cassette tape with ‘don’t you forget about me’ handwritten on the label

The songs aren't taking us backward. They're showing us which direction forward actually is.

Lily Qian

How to use the past without living there

Nostalgia isn’t the enemy of moving forward. It’s more like ballast — weight that keeps you upright when everything’s shifting. Batcho says the healthiest nostalgia “comforts us in stressful times, motivates us to connect or reconnect with others, and helps us appreciate the meaning and purpose of our life.” But she also warns when it “leads to social withdrawal” or “discourages us from remaining engaged.”

The difference, I think, is action. When I play those old songs, am I using them to call Mike, or to avoid calling Mike? When I remember high school, am I mining it for the courage to show up now, or using it as evidence that I’ve already peaked?

Abeyta says it’s important to acknowledge the loss, but frame it with appreciation and gratitude. Then — and this is the part I keep forgetting — use that to reconnect.

Batcho offered me one more piece of guidance that’s been rattling around my head. “To move from refuge to resource, it is especially beneficial to indulge nostalgia with others,” she says. “Sharing nostalgic remembrances with others helps keep grief grounded in the present and the continuing interpersonal comforts and responsibilities that sustain meaning and purpose.”

Which is a way of saying, don’t just sit alone with the memories. Call somebody who was there. Or call somebody who wasn’t there but you wish had been. Call somebody, period.

Last week, I texted three friends I hadn’t talked to in years. Didn’t even have a reason, just said I’d been thinking about them. Two wrote back within an hour. The third called. We talked for 40 minutes about nothing and everything, the kind of conversation where you’re just catching up but also somehow remembering who you used to be and realizing you’re still basically that person, only with worse knees and better insurance.

When we hung up, I realized this is what I’ve been looking for on that conveyor belt. Not the past. The people who were there, who are still here, who might pick up the phone if I actually called.

The songs aren’t taking me backward. They’re reminding me what direction “forward” actually is. Which is usually toward other people, preferably ones who also remember when MTV played music videos and gas was under a dollar and we all thought we’d figured everything out by now.

We hadn’t, obviously. But at least we can laugh about it together. Preferably with Simple Minds playing in the background, because apparently my premotor cortex needs the external structure, and my nucleus accumbens could use the dopamine hit, and honestly, I just need to get off this damn couch. Which is why I’ve started keeping a playlist on my phone labeled “Off the Couch, A–-hole.” It’s not motivational pump-up music. It’s just songs from high school and college, stuff that my brain has already decided matters. When I can’t get off the couch, I put it on. Three songs in, I’m usually doing the dishes. Five songs in, I’m sometimes outside. It’s not magic. It’s neuroscience. But it feels like magic, so I’m taking it.

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