When we are in a place, we feel it is the place that is special, but the truth is that it is the people that are there with us that make that place special. We might have a particular place where we meet with friends or family members, and then we make the mistake of thinking that particular place is special until we visit that place without friends or loved ones, and then we realize that it is the people that actually made the place special, and visiting there alone, all that will flood your head and mind will be the memories you created with them on the days that you were there with them.
"Why do you want to visit your high school for no good reason?" Royal, my college roommate asked me after weeks where I kept saying I wanted to visit my high school for no reason.
"I just miss the place, I think. I have really not been happy lately. Maybe visiting a place like that will leave a smile on my face. I miss how I felt whenever I was there; I miss how I used to laugh whenever I was there. I just want to go there, and maybe I will feel all of that again." I responded.
"Are your high school friends going with you?" Royal asked.
"No, those annoying people; I am going alone, please." I responded with a face like, why would they go with me?
"Haha," Royal laughed. "There is no way you are going to feel how you used to feel in high school without your high school friends. The building might be the same, but without the people, you will never get that feeling." Royal added
"Watch and see, the only person I would have done that with has traveled out of the country. I just want to visit and see if that feeling comes back." I responded.
"All the best then." Royal said.
A few weeks after our conversation I traveled home for the holidays and seized the opportunity to visit the high school I attended. A few of my teachers were still there and were very happy to see me. It has been close to six years since I graduated, and not much has changed in the school: the same boards, the same style of students coming to the principal's office to collect chalk and marker, and the teachers that were still there still use the same style of teaching, giving students their notes to copy for them while they come later to explain it. I sat with the teachers in the staff room and observed a lot of things, and all I was observing left me smiling sheepishly.
After a few conversations with my teachers I decided to take a walk around; even the juniors from when I was in school had graduated. If not for the few teachers that were still there, I would say I was a complete stranger in my own alma mater. The way the current students were looking at me left me feeling uncomfortable and wanting to leave, but I really needed a tour around the school and to see if I would feel how I used to feel around the school. I felt nothing until I stumbled upon our nicknames we had carved on the wall of the school toilet, and was severely punished for doing that, but it could not be removed, and it was still there, just the way we left it.
Seeing that brought back so many memories, even the memory of the Tuesday morning when we took turns to stand guard while each and every one of us added our name to the list on the wall; it was one that really put a smile on my face, and I bet those who noticed will think I am mentally unstable but will not understand the nostalgia that hit me at that point. I remembered the smiles on our faces after we were punished and how we were mimicking each other's reaction to the punishment by the discipline master.
I felt like a stranger in a place that once felt like home, a place where I was once famous and couldn't walk two steps without hearing someone scream my name, same building, different people, different energy, and it was at that point that I understood what my roommate was trying to point out. The people and the memories we make with them in a place are actually what make that place special, not the place, not the building, not the beach, not the school, and not the neighborhood; it was the people. I sat where I used to sit with friends, but then there was no smile on my face, just the memories of how I used to smile back then with friends surrounding me.
"It is the memories that we created that made the school feel like it holds my happiness." I said to myself as I headed towards the exit.
