This Spring Break I decided to be very low key and to chill back home (I already had multiple midterms to study for and assignments to do anyway). So, during March, my high school usually has this one big event called the International Fair, where a bunch of stands of all the countries represented by the student body showcase traditional food and items essential to their culture. It's basically a fun day for everyone to enjoy and I've loved it each time I went during my high school years.
Hyesu Chung
What I did not expect was for nostalgia to hit me in the face, especially when seeing my past teachers again. It was a very weird interaction and I, for some reason, didn't know how I was in their classes. It just felt like seeing someone that you met once a very long time ago and that you've never truly kept in contact with. I didn't imagine anything to be like this, but I guess that's life.
That's one weird thing to check off of this list. Another thing was that I was so bored during the entire thing, I didn't understand it. I remembered the event being so fun, such a great day to spend with my friends and now it just felt like it went to shit. I get that my friends weren't around so it wasn't as fun, but I still had an adequate amount of enjoyment even if I was alone/with my parents. I didn't really know what happened. Maybe life happened.
I walked around the common areas and went into bathrooms and classrooms where I felt so comfortable doing so and felt very out of place. It kind of felt like when Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) grew out of the house that she was in.
Literally how I felt. I felt so confused and weird and strange. I guess it was very weird to realize that my reality was once in these hallways and bathrooms when now it's USC: going to class at Fertitta and getting coffee at Cafe 84. The fact that I grew out of this one specific reality and into another really hit me hard when I went back.
I guess I'm not saying that you shouldn't go back to visit your high school, especially if you really, truly enjoyed your time there. I did too, but this type of emotional reaction really wasn't what I was expecting. It's kind of like romanticizing something in your memory and to now realize that, that ideal memory isn't true anymore really was something weird. It's part sad, part nostalgic and definitely part weird.
