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10:53 p.m. - October 09, 2002 Today seems to be a day of nostalgia. Isn't it funny...how going back to one's alma mater brings back a flood of memories, and standing on a beautiful, old college campus makes you feel completely at home, except for the fact there's about 750 new faces you don't recognize? And that even though going back to the place where you graduated from, where you feel like you finally grew up, and where this spot meant something, and that spot meant something else...and seeing all the changes and wishing that things hadn't changed, or that maybe you've just changed so much, just like the campus and the faces of the students there, realizing that you've also changed so much, so it doesn't feel quite like home this time? This is what happened to me when I visited my alma mater today (morning classes were cancelled). I stepped out of the car, went to see my former adviser, and things were different; I am no longer a student there and we have our own agendas: his revolves around his own students and mine revolves around the insecurities of graduate school and my own life. I walked around some more and learned that several of my favorite college workers were let go during last year's budget cuts, and with satisfaction, I noted that the publication that I co-edited for two years isn't as good as it was when I was working on it. Last year's editor was fired for doing a shoddy job and using the publication as a platform for his own political beliefs... I walked some more and saw the new buildings and wished I had that when I was a student. The students ambled on by, and this time, I didn't greet them, but rather, sidled along, wondering if I knew anyone or if people recognized me, or if they'd even know who I was. Probably not. I suppose going back is pretty much impossible. Life is linear. It just goes on forward and maybe it seems like it loops back onto itself, but really, when past and present cross, there's really nothing but the present and the future. I mean, when you try to go back, you realize...you're a different person and don't quite fit in. Maybe that was it, that's the problem I've been struggling with for the past several years. I'm not one of those people who thrives on change. I'm one of those people who changes when she feels like it, and grows into routine, and when I make a conscious change, it's a big one and is meaningful to me. And I'm always changing in small ways, so small and subtle that I don't even realize it till much later. I look at friends I used to have and realize that while I thought I grew up during college, I grew up even more and continue to do so now... I treasure what I have and I try not to take things for granted--particularly friendship. One of my friends is a person who moves on and on, because she gets bored with situations and with people. Sometimes I think she got bored with me, so she moved on. She got bored with another person before she started becoming one of my best friends. A "moveable feast" as another one of my friends called her. But I'm starting to accept that, starting to understand that sometimes, people are going to hurt you unintentionally. It's just harder than it was in grade school, where we'd just flit around and make new friends like that and keep moving on and on. I just wish that even though things change, I just wish that certain people would grow into the change instead of moving on. Guess I'm not as over that as I thought.
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