Revisiting Nostalgia

about summer 2021, revisiting high school

July 10th 2021 

It was odd going back to high school. 

Road Tripping down south from Vermont, I set Lafayette, Louisiana as my final destination, where most of my friends in the states are, and where I spent almost 6 years of my life. 

To be honest, it wasn’t a good time when I think about my high school in general. It’s an all girl catholic boarding school. The values and principles are very conservative, and most of the people in the school are rich white girls. In the worst case possible, I was lucky enough to find groups of friends to keep in touch with till now. Today, I had brunch with my high school English teacher, who I adore dearly. She said to me, “you know you are friends when you don’t have to explain yourself.” The group of friends I had in my time at the school are the group of people I realized (later in life, now) who I don’t have to explain much to. 

Yesterday, I had to leave my host’s house because of some emergency situation. I called my friends in high school, and they immediately agreed to host me for as long as I wanted to stay. I am grateful for not only not having to pay air b and b, but also how they made it so easy: just a casual request made by a 3 minute phone call. I am lucky enough, so lucky enough to have people in my life that back me up without any reason. I went to my friend Charity's dorm, stayed with her and her roommates. We didn’t have to talk much. We sat on the couch together, drinking low alcohol soda, talked about boys and other things, she helped me with my laundry, turned on tv and played old music videos of 50cents. 

Just a casual night like that, who would imagine we haven’t seen each other for almost 2 years. Co-existing, is the most comfortable situation you could be in, speaking from an introvert, of course. 

Few days ago, I went back to visit my high school. Driving through the familiar school drive by myself, seeing the same oak trees, same yellow fire hydrant on my drive, I started to understand how well I might know this place. I knew it from my heart where each type of plant was located on the 35mph 2 miles drive. These are things I didn’t think about in the past when thinking about school. Many ways of driving back and forth between somewhere else and the school, with different people: my friends, my parents, people I still know, people I don't talk to anymore… million times of driving, walking, biking. Flashbacks flash through my mind like water in hurricane season. This was the first time I drove alone, by myself, in my own car. Who would ever think about that? That time, when my friends and I had to walk or bike 2-3 miles to the only place in town that’s open past 3o’ clock in the afternoon, the McDonald's, just to get out of campus to have an ice cream cone and some fries. Sometimes we had to wait after school and beg multiple people because we didn’t have a car. Driving through familiar trees and flowers, I almost see the younger me with longer hair and my friends walking towards me. 

Tears, uncountable, are the medium of the present me reaching to the past. I am still the same, but different. Me having a shaved head, was still awkward talking to fake blonde well dressed white suburban moms, no matter how sincere they pretended to be. The un-comfortability appears and reappears as I walk into familiar situations again and again. My dry humor, and the tendency to look people straight into their eyes. I want to see the soul, but sometimes I see nothing. So I cried in front of the oaks. They were and still are my gods. They have been the guardians of the planet earth, yet a small town in Louisiana is a part of it. Summer’s green leaves with forever long grey tassels hanging, as if life and death coexist in one body. They are just there, mutual as they can be, standing, watching. One of them fell due to the hurricane, but the leaves are still green, and inside of the root that remains, there are new branches peeking out from the tree slits.