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!