I spent my day off revisiting old work and stumbled across images from my teenage years, specifically when I was 16. It was beautiful and haunting at the same time, to look back at a life that was constantly upside down, yet somehow always wore a smile. That 16-year-old kid was navigating homelessness, bouncing from house to house, all while chasing the dream of becoming a photographer. He documented everything, his smiles, his struggles, his environment. He was fighting through darkness, but he carried an undeniable spark of positivity. Amid toxic living situations, school pressures, and the chaos of life, photography was his escape, his haven.

16 Year old Willie

Now, at 27, I’m in a much better place than I was back then. I have stability, love, and purpose. But there’s a knot in my stomach when I open my laptop and realize my camera has been sitting unused for months. I miss the rawness of life, the fire of creative obsession that once burned so fiercely. I miss every moment leading up to the shot because no matter how flawed it was, it was real.

Is nostalgia grief? I wonder. Am I mourning not the past itself, but the version of me who could feel so deeply, who could create without fear, who could smile through uncertainty? Life has matured me, taught me perspective, and yet in knowing more, in having more stability, I have lost a bit of the passion that once defined me.

Nostalgia feels like a kind of grief, the mourning of a version of yourself that no longer exists, the longing for a raw, unfiltered connection to life. It is bittersweet, a reminder of how far I have come, but also of the parts of myself I have not fully reclaimed.