Change-ish

Yesterday, I had the chance to hang out with three of my freshman year roommates (one of which lives in my same complex now), just the four of us. At one point during the evening, we drove past the dorms where we had lived together.

I was a little surprised but pleased to find no feelings of regret, no desire to return, inside myself as I took in the red-brick, castle-looking buildings. Freshman year was a good time. My roommates were good roommates. It was good to be together again.

But I don't want to go back.

I don't need to. I am older, different, and better now (I hope at least a little better).

It is fascinating to me the way that time flows and shifts; how it turns and pulls and pushes. It carries us from one point to the next, but doesn't exist by itself. It is connected to words, feelings, even smells and sounds. "Freshman year." That was a time. It is gone now. But it was, once.

So driving along and talking, it wasn't like I had time machined back to freshman year. I presented myself to my old roommates as the "now" me, not the "freshman" me (thank goodness).

It was pleasing, then, simply to taste the past again, and know that I can change.