Nostalgia

So, there's this group on Facebook for Mexicans in Italy, which I'm a member of, being half Mexican. Anyhow, I keep reading all their nostalgic messages, they miss everything: the food, the kindness of the people, even the chaos and pollution! Don't get me wrong, I loved growing up in chaotic Mexico City, it made me who I am and I left friends and family there but now I have a life in another place that I happen to love; therefore I have trouble understanding why people won't enjoy what they are living because they are too busy remembering old times. This brought to my mind a book I keep reading and reading over and over again (reading is another passion of mine) by Mexican writer Jorge Ibargüengoitia (1928-1983) called "La casa de usted y otros viajes" (Your own house and other travels). The book is a collection of articles written during his trips in Mexico and abroad and his early life in the Mexican countryside. In one of those trips he realizes how people (Mexicans in this case), when living abroad become so nostalgic about silly things; in Washington he meets a Mexican living there who is sighing for tequila, when Ibargüengoitia explains that he can get tequila in every grocery shop the Mexican replied: "yeah, but the lemon doesn't taste the same"...Nostalgia is irrational and irreparable, and it will always be superior to the solution one can propose you. In my opinion, if you want to live a happy life, it's a feeling you might want to keep in the bottom drawer. Enjoy the place you are living in, the people surrounding you and the tastes, the smells and the sounds of the place you now call home without forgetting where you come from, all those memories made you who you are but they shouldn't determine your future (I'm getting too philosophical, right?).
Of course I miss tacos with a cold Pacifico beer, but I'll be enjoying my delicious pasta with a glass of Verdicchio!