Nostalgic For Now

Last spring, I started coaching school.

I’d already considered myself a “coach.” During my career in corporate world, I adopted the synonym instead of the jargon: “people leader,” “career manager.” I’d taken all of the requisite trainings for managing others, and had led teams through re-orgs, changing priorities, countless personalities, and financial crises.

But coaching school was different. It’s not coaching-to-get-to-a-result, it’s holding space for the person you’re with. It’s being present for the moment.

Coaching school is all about listening, and in the “fundamentals” course, the listening echoes internally too. Through personal introspection and self-reflection, the class gets acquainted with each other fast. Vulnerability is a pre-requisite.

Opening-up happens quickly:

1. You’re required to reflect and self-assess, which counts toward participation.

2. You’re being coached by your classmates within the first hour (yes, with lots of stumbling, and yes, with sneaky emotions that just flood out).

The point of “fundamentals” is learning to be self aware and begin understanding how to ditch your ego, biases, and opinions. Your sessions are all about the other person. Noticing how the other speaks, how their energy reflects what they’re saying (or doesn’t), and how to create space for openness.

Each day was learning, practicing with classmates, and reflection. When we were about to wrap, we’d put it all together.

We’d be asked: How did it go? What did you learn? What’s here now?

In one of my end-of-day reflections, I said something surprising.

“I’m nostalgic because I only get to be a first-time coach once. And it’s over.”

I didn’t mean that I had finished the program, or even begun to think about certification. Earlier that day, I’d asked yes-or-no questions in my practice sessions, which violated the golden rule of coaching. I was just getting started.

A new chapter of my personal and professional life was in the process of being written, and I was creating the story in real-time. I was in the gray area between an older version of me, and the “new” version I aspired to be.

At the end of that first course, the instructors called us coaches. My first-coaching-moment was over.

Looking back, I reflected on the decisions, self-inquiry, and years of growth I’d needed to get there.

A beginning had begun.

In the future, I’d see that my first coaching class was the start of something new and special, which would grow and evolve into something more.

At some point later in life, I’d look back and realize how transformational this moment was. I’d look back and feel proud of the eager, unsure, naïve, excited version of myself that just graduated into something new.

I was simultaneously living in the moment, while looking at it in retrospect.

I was nostalgic during the now.

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I’ve always loved piecing life experiences together, giving them deeper meaning and understanding their purpose. The bigger picture was always more impactful than the small, quotidian moments. The plot more important than the pages.

For most of my life, this piecing-together happened in retrospect. In reflection, the weaving of life’s moments gave them context, meaning, and satisfying purpose. I had the power to arrange smaller pieces of a story into a clearer, bigger puzzle. To look at life in a grand scheme felt more interesting than getting mired in the mundane.

During my depression, I was cycling through constant questioning of life’s biggest themes: purpose, meaning, love, life, service, and passion. I didn’t see clear plot lines for my own story, and the uncertainty of where I was headed, haunted me.

Like my days as an over-achieving student, I wanted to read-ahead. I needed to know what happened next, so I could study and prepare the right answer.

I needed to be validated.

Like my days as a scared child, I wanted to assess the situation. I needed to understand the threats and circumstances to weave my way around them.

I needed to be safe.

I named the uncertainty of my depression the “gray area.” I hated the gray area. It was the land of unanswered, confusing, unknown, unprepared, unresolved. It was everything I tried to avoid my entire life. It was a constant in-between state.

My gray area forced me to realize that I couldn’t move through life by always being three steps ahead. While it made me uncomfortable, I knew it wasn’t sustainable. It was exhausting. I’d spent my life being so occupied living in what-ifs, hows, and whens to prevent failure, I hadn’t experienced being in the now.

My fixation on figuring-out the future robbed me from being in the present. In a constant swirl of preparation for a moment that may or may-never happen, I lost focus of what was right in front of me.

What’s real. What’s in the moment. What’s here now.

The now was the space and time I had avoided throughout my life. The reality where meaning and purpose weren’t packaged nicely in retrospect. The frightening place that I had yet to make sense of.

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Navigating the now took practice.

I had to rewrite my perspective from surviving and preparing, to living and doing. I had to trade planning and strategizing, for feeling and being. I had to get out of my thoughts and into my life.

To get out of my head, I went in the opposite direction: I focused on physical senses. Sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste. By tapping into this reality, I connected with what was around me. A distraction from my thoughts. A connection to the present.

This is much easier said than done, especially for a person who has existed almost entirely in thought. My quick “snap out of it” litmus test became: if it’s not real, right in front of me, can’t see it—it doesn’t exist.

As I experimented being in the now, I started to see more and feel more. By slowing down and focusing on what was physically in front of me, I began to study what I saw and experienced, and created space to name how it made me feel.

The connection between external and internal started to form, and I finally started to see a new chapter being written.

By connecting with the world around me, I was growing a new world inside of me. The two were linked, and each moment of external discovery led to more insight about what brought me joy, what didn’t feel great, and how to process both.

I began to realize—whether pleasant or unpleasant—both types of feelings were fleeting. Once the moment happened, it was over. The outside world changes, and I change with it. Something that was in front of me five minutes ago may not be there anymore. The excitement, discomfort, or uncertainty is just as fleeting as the cause.

The controlling part of me felt relieved. If I fail, it would be temporary. If I’m embarrassed. Doesn’t matter. The sentimental part of me activated. I didn’t want to lose the special moment of joy. The pride. The accomplishment.

I found balance through a rhythm of focusing, appreciating, and holding onto what felt good—and letting go of the rest.

The uncertain, in-betweenness of my gray area had twisted its plot. By not being something, it opened the possibility to be anything. I could be excited or scared, nervous and ready, tender but strong. It’s up to me to define, and I have the power to write my own story. Over, and over again. It’s limitless.

I don’t have to wait for retrospect to reveal its grand meanings.

The now is whatever I want it to be.

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The gray area of my life was full of questions, doubts, and fear. It represented an uncertainty that I desperately wanted control over. It was the version of myself who mixed up certainty for safety.

By finding balance between my thoughts, emotions, and the world around me, I can finally see in color.

By detaching from the larger plot of my life, I’m able to immerse myself in the moments that make my story real.

I’m nostalgic for the different characters I’ve played in my life. I look back at how strong, naïve, courageous, and sweet they were. They all had a part in shaping who I am today, and as I write this now, I’m a version of myself that I’ll look back at with gratitude and compassion.

I’m nostalgic for the moments that shape us. We’re in the middle of stories that could go anywhere. There are infinite chapters, infinite characters. Everyday life is a chance to rewrite the mundane into magic. The opportunity to see, taste, smell, feel something new. An endless list of firsts.

I’m nostalgic for time. The rare, special combination of our current character and the story we’re writing—happening all at once. The constant moment between who we are, and who we are becoming.

I’m nostalgic for now.