This story is part of the August 25 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories . Ninety-four-year-old June Squibb voices the character of Nostalgia in Pixar’s Inside Out 2 .
Riley, the girl whose head we are inside in the film, is a teenager and Nostalgia keeps getting sent away by the other emotions every time she appears. Riley, just starting high school, is too young to feel nostalgic. Nevertheless, I appreciated the nod to the importance of this emotion as my grandchildren and I watched the film.
Nostalgia is an inevitable part of getting older. It helps us stand back and reassess who we are and how far we have come, once we are old enough to feel it. No one was competing any more.
We had settled into ourselves and accepted ourselves for who we are and where we have ended up. Credit: Getty Images I was reminded of Squibb’s Nostalgia when I attended my 50-year high-school reunion recently. The event began with a tour of the school, and I was astonished by how my alma mater had shrunk.
In my memory, it was huge. Even the gym, my most hated space, seemed modest. I remember it as cavernous and terrifying.
When I entered that gym, 50 years on, I didn’t feel nostalgic. I felt a surge of fear. The misery I experienced in that place as a non-sporty teenage girl is still with me.
I have a vivid memory of the PE mistress, a woman who made her disdain for my lack of talent abundantly clear, prizing my fingers off the high and low bar in an attempt to get me to swing from my kn.