I recently made the long trip back to the high school. It had been less than a year since I last walked through the halls (to my classes, and it was my assumption that things wouldn’t have changed that much.)

However, when I arrived at the doors, the experience was entirely different, I went through the standard security check took my visitors badge and entered the halls, and immediately it hit me. I used to belong to this place, but now I was an outsider. It was an ambivalent feeling of discomfort and freedom. There were no rules that had to be followed, no punishments to be handed out for disobedience, and no need to go anywhere in particular. At the same time, I felt that this was a place that I didn’t belong.

I wondered for a bit, visiting the teachers that I had intended to visit, and discussing whatever needed to be discussed with them, all the time I noticed that sense of ambivalence, being both connected and disconnected from this place.

Later I noticed that two banners that had my picture on it as part of a state championship team had been taken down. This was right before an old teacher of mine asked me to speak to her class of sophomores, none of which knew my name, and no one recognized it when they heard it.

It was at this point that I realized that this place had forgotten me. Sure there were some people still there who remember me, however, most have already forgotten, and it will only become more prevalent until I am completely forgotten there.

The connection that I had to my high school was not a connection to the place itself, but a connection to the people that were there. Now that those people are gone, those memories and those connections are gone too.

And the same thing will happen at college. The school will forget and will move on. New students will come and take your place. The connections that you make with other people will be all that signifies you were there. Well, that and your diploma.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].