Eventually, everyone forgets. That’s the worst part, maybe. It’s been so long since anyone’s seen Earth; so long since that first crew made their way shipward, leaving behind their beloved planet wreathed in smoke and ice. They had to get out—they knew it, everyone knew it, but they were lucky, and found a ship.
And they set course to Somewhere Else and settled down, and when they had children they told their children the story of where they used to live. They left out the worst parts, maybe, because even now, surrounded by chrome and glass and stars, the acute bite of the planet’s betrayal has lessened. And by the time they passed on, and the ship was still careening Away, the children of the children of the first crew had only the faintest wisps of understanding of what Used to Be. By the time they got to Somewhere Else (a beautiful planet, with singing stones and citrine trees and soil that smelled like cumin and water you could walk over), no one could even remember why they’d left Earth to begin with.
“I suppose it must have been terrible,” they said uncertainly. “We took so much effort to leave. It must have been the worst place.”
But that nagging sense of doubt was so profound they eventually gave it a name:
Nonstalgia (noun)