Outside The Bubble: Changing Becomes Apparent Through Nostalgic Reflection

My favorite professor freshman year was a graduate student, and the end of my first year at Boston College marked the end of his Masters program. While I was preparing to be a sophomore, he was off to Michigan State for a doctoral program. We continued to keep in touch (and still do every so often), and during one of our email exchanges I asked if he was planning a visit. He never gave me a definite date, but he did say something that I still remember today: "When I do come back, you can show me around campus and point out all the things that have changed." As a sophomore for only a mere two or three weeks, I laughed at this comment. Everything that's changed? What could have possibly changed since May? What could possibly change in one year, let alone just a few months?
I smiled to myself and thought, "Older people get so nostalgic over everything." I didn't understand this phenomenon. When I left middle school, I was ready to move on. I was excited for real teenagedom. Then, high school actually happened. Let's just say the excitement waned throughout those four years. I was more than ready to graduate and leap into the great unknown that was college. I never looked back in either case. Maybe it was because I was a live-in-the-moment kind of teen, or maybe it was because I hadn't found anything meaningful to hold on to.
BC was a horse of a different color. There were so many intangible things that I wanted to hold tight to, whether they were the fundamentals of true friendship and independence, the security of being a student, or the swell of pure joy that came with being in the student section of a sporting event. These were all feelings I knew I'd carry with me for a long time. These were all feelings I wasn't ready to let go of.
When I first returned to BC in October, I had a packed schedule of events, including a football game and all that entails. I tailgated in the Mods. My alumni friends and I started the game in the regular seats, but switched into the student section in the second half. I went to Roggie's and CitySide. I stayed on campus with my friend Michelle, and her room hosted a party one of the nights I was there. It felt like just another weekend in the life of a student, albeit with a slightly stronger hangover given the lowered tolerance that comes with less frequent drinking. It was like I had never left. I didn't even have the chance to be nostalgic.
My second trip back to BC occurred last weekend, and despite a few similarities to the fall trip, everything seemed … different. It was like the three months in between visits cemented my status as an alumnus – as someone who just didn't go to BC anymore. I went to a hockey game, and by the time we got there, there were no more seats in the student section, so we were relegated to the awkward side section where no one dons a Superfan shirt. There were suddenly new cheers I had never heard before, and no one seemed to remember that the chant "[Insert goalie name here] sucks!" is supposed to end with, "At life and goaltending!"
I helped my old roommate give her family friend a tour of the campus on Saturday, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the stats and facts from my time as a tour guide are forever etched in my brain. Along the way, my roommate and I found even more surprises. There were changes in almost every building we entered. Mostly Macs instead of Dells in the CTRC? A flat screen and newly renovated rental office in the Plex? A door leading to the library from the Campanella entrance to O'Neill? Is BC trying to send me into depression?
For anyone still attending BC, these are probably just minor changes that simply make life easier, but to any alumnus, they are earth shattering. Once I heard myself telling this prospective student, "I'm sorry, but this wasn't here before," or, "Why didn't they change that before we left," I realized that in three years, I had learned  exactly what my professor meant when he asked me to show him all the things that had changed.
And so, nine months after graduation, my transition into a nostalgic adult  is finally complete. It was, after all, inevitable. Last week's visit was necessary to the growing process, as well as to the learned lesson that things must change. Progress demands it. If BC is going to build new doors to open, the least I can do is walk through them into my own future.