I’ve never been good with change. When it comes to life’s stages, I suffer from a sort of debilitating nostalgia, preoccupied with missing my yesterdays even as my right nows pass by around me. No year is as wonderful as the one that’s just past, no time as good as five minutes ago. When I hit junior high school and adolescence reared its pimpled head, my condition became almost terminal: Toys I’d outgrown years before gathered dust in my cluttered bedroom, where I sat like a pint-sized Miss Havisham, refusing the passage of time.

I did, of course, get over it. I grew up, went to college, and slowly, oh so slowly, learned to think of the future with something sunnier than the melancholy farewells that used to reverberate through every change. At my parent’s house this past week, I’ve even found myself mentally redecorating my old bedroom, stripping the peeling and water-stained paper off the walls and clearing the shelves of dusty plastic ponies. Selecting things that could be saved: Maybe this happy memory can stand on its own now. Maybe the sad one could be brushed away.

And at my cousin Molly’s wedding this past weekend, I found myself cheering for the future, able to see the years of joy anticipated in every moment. I wouldn’t give up today’s happy Molly, off on her Tahitian honeymoon, for anything, not even the chance to see the sturdy baby cousin she used to be. Some futures are worth the past that’s lost.