While perusing my Facebook feed today, I discovered that Crystal Pepsi, the translucent counterpart to Coca Cola's caffeinated rival is making an unprecedented return to shelves after twenty three years of discontinuation. When it comes to manufactured food products from decades past, some have made their return such as the "Monster" themed breakfast cereals which make a fitting appearance in stores every October. Others like the turkey frankfurter Gobble Stix exist only in childhood memory. Just the thought of them takes me back to the third grade when my Mother would lovingly augment my insulated Thermos lunch bag with those salty, overly processed poultry snacks.
As I recall, Crystal Pepsi had the shortest lifespan of these products. I'm not even sure it lasted a whole year and I personally don't remember trying it more than once. I don't remember how it tasted, although it clearly wasn't remarkable enough for me to remember one way or another. Crystal Pepsi even incurred something of a backlash, with many of my friends and family declaring it a bland and unnecessary concept. There was even a "Crystal Gravy" sketch on Saturday Night Live which made the idea seem all the more bizarre.
Why then am I, a child of the '90s so excited to crack open one of these bottles with a lettering scheme that reminds me just how much soda company designs have subtly evolved over the years? No one seems to care a great deal when food companies tweak their fonts or coloring, but when you compare the same product that existed from two long separated decades, it's something of an amusing surprise.
This is how the most profound instances of nostalgia function: through the minute and sometimes inane elements of everyday life. I think of the "little things" as a provocative, visceral key to a bigger portrait of one's state of mind at a particular time in life. We can imagine our lives when we were seven years old, but it's these silly products and television shows that truly take us back there in feeling. That's why smell often functions as nostalgia's most evocative trigger. Before our minds really have a chance to process it, a scent from the past can conjure up surprisingly specific situations within a matter of seconds.
Nostalgia is defined as a longing for the past, with the past perceived as better than the present. Sometimes even if that isn't necessarily the case, we idealize the past in an increased contrast with a bleak present. That's why it carried both positive and negative connotations with people. It is common to see people derided for "living in the past" and forgoing the world around you entirely for one that has passed does indeed border on delusion. At the same time, nostalgia does have healing qualities. It usually surfaces in times of difficulty and improves our mood in response.
In addition to those pleasant feelings, nostalgia can also remind us in times of personal uncertainty that we were once capable of happiness and therefore provides hope that we have the ability to achieve it once more. Among the worst feelings one can experience is that of feeling disconnected or lost in search of your true essence. As we age, reality tends to instill us with a cynicism that combats the naive confidence one has in their youth. In contrast, nostalgia can remind us of times when we truly believed we were capable of greatness and at least instilling a hope that such a time is capable of reoccurring.
I doubt I'll have such an existential experience when I sip Crystal Pepsi for the first time in over twenty years, but at the very least it will make Jurassic Park that much more fun to watch for the fiftieth time.
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