Old made new made old

For Spring Break this year, we took a family trip to San Diego. I went to college at USD and hadn’t been back in decades. I was excited to show the boys the campus, the beach, and all my old favorite places.

As the plane started to descend and buildings came into view, I craned my neck toward the window, wondering if I could spot a few landmarks, but nothing stood out. I blamed my aisle seat. The airport, at one time so small and easy, had been renovated and expanded and looked nothing like how I’d remembered.

We drove through the city and I tried to help my husband navigate through traffic. But everything seemed so unfamiliar.

“You lived here, right?” he asked.

I laughed. “Yes, but I guess it’s just been a long time.”

It had been a long time.

I graduated in 1999 and couldn’t remember the last time I’d traveled back to San Diego.

After checking in at the hotel and having lunch, we drove to campus.

Nothing looked the same. There were new buildings and facilities. The cafeteria wasn’t where the cafeteria used to be. An Institute for Peace stood on the field where I played lacrosse games. The USD Wellness Center offered multiple gyms, a smoothie bar, and yoga classes. I couldn’t recall if there was any gym anywhere when I was a student. The coffee shop might have been in the same location, but it was at least four times the size and looked more like a Starbucks than the 1950s diner I had pictured in my mind. The outside of the library looked the same, but the interior had been completely redesigned.

At least the Reading Room, reserved for quiet study, had stood the test of time. When I stepped into it, I let out a long exhale. But the rest of the building bore no resemblance to my recollection, which surprised me, considering how much time I’d spent there.

Even the chapel had been renovated “to restore its original appearance,” a sign in the vestibule read.

I couldn’t remember how close to the original the chapel had been when I attended church there. But it appeared new on this visit, even if the new was the old.

I began to doubt my own memories.

I swear I lived in that dorm. I swear I took classes in that building and ate lunch in that one. I swear my Shakespeare class once met under that tree. I swear this fountain didn’t exist.

I had such vivid, solid imprints of those years. But when I went back to the places they all took place, expecting to confirm them, the memories began to loosen, as if being untethered from a stake in the ground.

What did I expect, really?

It had been almost thirty years. Thirty years of endowments and visions and ideas to expand and improve.

Of course things would be different. Of course the touchstones of the past, which had been so cemented in my mind, would be changed or replaced in the present reality.

We went to the beach where I’d spent so much time sitting and staring at the water, running along the boardwalk, looping around in search of a parking space. I’d remembered that beach and the town as so magical, the ocean view so beautiful, the sand so soft.

But we found the beach crowded and littered with trash. The water was freezing. The boardwalk was narrow and electric bikes and scooters whizzed past at such high speeds we had to walk single file.

Memories, which had once been so crystallized, started to blur. I felt unmoored and unsure. Those years were so monumental, so transformative. But seeing how things had changed made me question my own experiences.

Had I remembered it all wrong? Had I invented these experiences and places? How trustworthy are my memories if the external markers and confines that held them are no longer recognizable?

We drove away from the beach and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Back at the hotel, while the rest of my family headed down to the pool, I sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes.

In my mind, I could still remember it all so clearly.

I could smell the saltwater air. I could see the fluorescent overhead lights of the cafeteria and the tiled floor of the coffee shop. I could hear the shouts down the dormitory hall. I could feel the hard wooden backs of the classroom chairs.

I remembered the late nights on bunk beds and the study sessions in the library basement carrels. I remembered the tear-filled calls home to my mom—on a phone mounted to the wall with a twisty rubber cord. I remembered the crushes and the broken hearts. I remembered the duality of fear and exhilaration of being on my own and the friendships molded around a shared experience that is so very specific to that age and time.

The memories restored everything to its original appearance.

It was all there.

My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. My mind had preserved and protected those memories. I could trust it, and them.

Some things stay the same. But most things don’t. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go back. It just means we shouldn’t go back to seek confirmation, because we might not find it.

I had lived a whole big life since those college days. It wasn’t just that the things had changed. My lens had changed as well. So, even if the buildings and the landscapes stayed exactly the same, I was always going to see them differently because I came back a different person.

But when I close my eyes, I can still find it all again. I can find that eighteen-year-old girl and experience the world as she did. It’s as true and real as it ever was. And just as sweet.