For the first time since I was very young, I’m not going to school this year. Even last year, though I had graduated, I returned to the classroom to TA a couple of English classes. While I was the one grading papers instead of writing them, September was still “back to school.” Before I started school myself, my older siblings were already in school, so my life has always revolved around the September to May cycle of the school calendar. Now, September is simply another month.
I keep seeing people posting about school supplies, moving into dorms or apartments, and seeing old friends. Pictures of joyful reunions, groups participating in silly games in the name of bonding, those delightful shenanigans that always seem to accompany the first few weeks of school when everyone is still energized from the summer and not bogged down with homework yet. Freshmen orientation has been going on at my alma mater this past week, and there is a piece of me that aches to be there. For the past few years, in some way, shape, or form, I was. Now, I’m just a graduate pining for days of yore.
This is not a new feeling for me–of wanting to repeat the good times, cling to the way things used to be. I’m fairly well versed in this subtle ache of nostalgia, yet I never entirely know what to do with it. It’s not entirely wrong of me to miss the good times I had in college or to want more of those moments. There is a balance though, of being able to look back and appreciate what was while not letting it cloud the goodness of what is, that I have yet to master. Maybe it’s one of those things you don’t ever completely master, but must continually relearn in different ways throughout the course of life.
Maybe it just takes a lot of time to come to terms with the fact that life only moves in one direction, and that is okay.
Til next time…
~Brianna!~
p.s. What moments in life do you get nostalgic about?
The Art of Becoming 