Me being sappy and sentimental...again!

We took Susan back to Valpo last night. I know it's ridiculous, but even after ten years, I get just a bit homesick for it and kind of weepy when have to leave. Some of it was dropping Susan off, who I miss and don't get to see as often as I'd like. Some of it was the weather. We're in this very weird warm streak. 65 degrees in January! So, when we got to campus, all of the snow had melted, and it was that damp warm feeling of spring. The ground smelled wet and well, earthy. You know, that "plants are going to start growing soon" smell. Plus, the pine trees had lost a lot of their needles during the rain, so you could really smell them and I always find that scent comforting, familiar.  It reminded me of those spring semester days when you were so desperate for the sun to shine and the weather to warm that people stopped wearing jackets and donned shorts in 55 degree weather. 

 

But most of it was just memories. Susan lives in a dorm that I used to live in, and despite all the other changes on campus, it remains virtually the same as when I was living there in 1994-1995. I walked past the exact spot in the grass where Julie, Becky, Debbie, Jill and I (and others) took our Sophomore year floor picture. The Chapel still looms in the sky as the tallest building on campus, but now with the Center for the Arts (which was built between my sophomore and junior year, I think. Someone know for sure?) and the new union in the way, you can just see the top of the roof. The back doors/maintanence entrance for the science center are right there too, near the front of the dorm, and it's there that a nail punctured my foot, through my boot, thanks to the VUCA construction, probably. Fortunately, Julie has a much steadier hand and stronger stomach than me, and she patched me up. 

 

The dorm still smells the same too. Girly lotions and shampoos on the girls floor, plus that stale old building scent. Made me feel like I could go up another two flights of stairs and find my friends waiting for me.

 

Not to mention the fact, after we dropped off all of Susan's bags, I walked back to the car--on the same sidewalks I'd walked countless times before at eighteen and nineteen years old--holding hands with my college boyfriend. Who knows me well enough (these days as my husband) to look at me as we were leaving and say, "You okay?"

 

And yeah, I'm fine. : ) Don't miss being nineteen and full of angst. But I do love to remember it!