Back at the Berk

It's strange how you suddenly can turn around one day and realize that what you thought was really still the present is now the past. Coming back to Berkshire, seeing everyone I used to work with, live with, and play with, doing the same thing they did last year, just drives home that point. I'm not here anymore. I've moved on. Berkshire is in the past now.

So that puts me in the position of looking back at a former self. I'm never too comfortable with that idea, that there are many me's that have been lost in time, but I can't help but believe in that phenomenon. Part of the present me is trying to fit back into the Berkshire me's old patterns, eating the same food in the dining hall, chiming in with comments about kids I taught, but the more I try to be Berkshire Dana, the more I realize I'm not anymore.

It's a bittersweet realization, when you notice you've changed. In some ways I'm so much happier now. But in other ways, I miss the old me. I miss the connections she had to the people here. Luckily most of those connections seem to have survived my transformation, despite the fact that I don't know half these kids who come up in conversation, and I don't know several of these teachers who've filled in the gaps for those of us who've left.

But I can't say I want to go back. I'm kind of content to be the outsider now, to watch my former colleagues (whom I can now just call friends) grapple with daily life here. I don't miss any of the stuff they complain about; in fact I thank my lucky stars that things like dorm duty, comment exchange, and advisees are out of my life for good (or at least for the next seven or so years).

It's the passage of time that always seems to blow me away though. You never expect it to happen even though it's going on constantly. You just don't really notice until you turn around and see that what you thought was right next to you is instead way behind you. And all you can do is kind of wave goodbye.