Middle school only looks golden because nostalgia deleted the awkward parts.

Memory does not keep the past evenly. It holds the peaks and quietly discards the long stretches of boredom and discomfort, so the version you carry is an edit that never existed as a lived day. Then you compare your current life, with all its dull hours included, against that edit and conclude that things used to be better.

When the past starts glowing, try to recall an ordinary Tuesday from it rather than the best moments. Remember what you were worried about then. The point is not to sour the memory, only to compare like with like before deciding your present is the problem.