A word for that

I think in life we all have those moments in life. Perhaps it's but an air of nostalgia, where we realize something that was never can be again -- where we lament the loss but accept the progress and meaning that moment gave us.

Have you ever heard the phrase "mono no aware [物の哀れ]?"

Back when I was in college, I took a Japanese culture class which discussed the idea.  It was a term coined by Motoori Norinaga, a Japanese author from the Edo period, meant to describe those bittersweet emotions we feel when something dear to us comes to an end.  
A quick google search yields a number of definitions: "the pathos of things," "the sensitivity of emphemera," "the transience of life," "the sorrow at evanescence."  In my class we defined it as "the impermanence of things."

Naturally life is full of these moments. But it seems we are each tasked -- challenged, if it were -- to move past them. Else, we risk being trapped in that lukewarm moment -- neither hot, nor cold, and living was never meant to be a steady temperature.

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物の哀れ (Mono no Aware)

If the moon shone half in a cloudless sky

The sea only splintered through rocks full-bloom

Azaleas chose rest through this fine spring or

Winter-gone birds kept their seasonal songs,

If scribes left their trades to take up barddom

Plants grew unruly for want of training

Sirens gave up their call for one month or

An afluent language became stone cold

If playwrights of passion turned tragedy

The fitful winds entertained no more trees

The temperance of things would soon be revealed

Beauty of life: redefined, understood. 

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