Not sure what to feel right now. *Vent*

[Gato'smum]

So I went back to visit my old gradeschool today (a good friend of mine has a daughter who attends the school now, and she was in the talent show). It was nice to be back, but...it's so different now. I've got a lot of good memories from this place, but now it's as though they're attached to an altogether different place. All the teachers I knew are gone (which is not exactly surprising, since it's been over ten years), and the school has been almost completely remodeled.

So, long story (kinda) short, it was good to be back overall. I enjoyed seeing my friend and her daughter...but as soon as I left to go home, I found myself crying. I'm not even sure why this made me so sad.

...Anyway, sorry for the angst. I had to get this out of my head...

[aTailOf2Kitties]

I had my 20 year reunion last year and several of us wandered through the school looking around. We were surprised at how much the building had changed, but were downright stunned to see that some of the same teachers were still teaching in the same classrooms in the same locations, 20 years later.

I had a bit of anxiety wandering around because I hated high school, but it was overridden to see so many of my classmates that rarely spoke to me back then but were all friendly and welcoming now.

[chocolatepuppy]

The grade school I went to is vacant with broken out windows and tall weeds around it. The high school I went to was leveled a couple years ago. All of this because they built new school buildings. Seems any memories I have will have to remain in my mind.

[Trinityagain]

My grade school has been converted to a daycare and my highschool looks more like a college campus now so I completely understand...

[Freedom]

I can understand this. You expected to return and see little "yous" in the place. Instead, it is like you visited a completely a different place. Times change, remodeling, teachers shift, it's not the way you remember, the way you expect. That can be shocking. It's the same as not seeing someone for a few years, and thinking of them as you last saw them all that time - only to bump in to them and find the long hair was cut into a bob, the short kid grew tall, etc. We think of things and people as fixed in time the way we last saw them.

My grade school was converted to senior housing.

Haven't been to either of the 2 middle schools I attended. (we had one school for 7th grade, back then, and another grades 8 and 9, but I only attended grade 8).

Then I went to a private high school.

We had a school wide reunion 3 years back, as so much had changed. It would have been my 29th Reunion year. I attended, loads of folks did. Oh the changes! They now have a new building, an 'athletic center.' Goodness me! One of the huge pluses in my mind way back when, why I wanted to go there, was that there was no gym classes! A huge ell addition has been added. It really was like visiting a new place. Thank goodness there were other classmates of mine present. We took a tour of the new place together and remembered which teacher used to be in which room. I think it helped, being there with others.

When I was there, we had nuns as teachers, with 2 lay teachers. Now, they have 100% lay teachers.

This past Sept, 2011, they started admitting boys to the high school. OK, no way it is the place I attended any longer. But I do wonder how they sorted out the bathrooms!