I had given up on instant messaging a couple of years ago, for reasons too long to go into here, so I didn't have an AOL account set up. Naturally, all of the user names I ordinarily choose were taken, so I had to reach into the ether to find one that most likely wasn't. As I probed around the void with my naked hand, I came upon something cool, wet, and a little... sticky. I could tell from the texture that it wasn't nostalgia, and it wasn't hope. It wasn't love and it wasn't fear. It was to small to be grandiosity, and too large to be humility. It was too light to be anxiety, and too heavy to be transcendence. I had a sense of deja vu. A memory that created a longing for a time and situation past, but a profound aversion to experiencing it again.
It's odd, but that sticky little sense that I had captured in my quest for a username turned out to be a memory of a time and place that I truly have never missed. As a chronic depressive, my life has been full of times that I'd rather not remember. In fact, there are so many of these times that when I feel nostalgic, as people are sometimes wont to do, I actually yearn not for a good time past, but a sad one. I don't know how else to describe it, except to say that there are times when I walk outside and take a deep breath, and the aroma of the season will transport me back in time to a place where I was miserable, and I feel a sense of loss.
I label this experience, and myself from time to time: viscousmemories.