I've been quiet on my blog this week because I'm on vacation and thinking about libraries very little. This is somewhat related... I guess you have to allow me to be liberal in the summer.
Last night we stopped in Auburn, Alabama where my husband finished his Ph.D. three years ago. It reminded me of how lonely it is to try to visit a place that is such a revolving door. While we had an excellent visit with his Ph. D. advisor, very few of his friends are left any more. He still had plenty of stories to tell me, showed me where his lab was, where his office was, and which office door window he put his best friend's shoulder through.
Thinking of trying to temporarily capture grad school again is lonely. When I get back to Bloomington, I have a few people left, but will never get the whole gang back in one place. Of those who are left, they are many of the most important people, but not everyone. I'd give anything to recreate several moments of time with the friends I made there... Harry Potter Night (before I was a Potterhead) with the collapsed cauldron cakes and gross attempt at butterbeer that started my love of ginger ale, our hiking group and camping trip, my favorite professor cooking enough Lebanese food to feed an army because I asked him to cook for me, that same professor delivering the Chicago Manual of Style in Hurricane Katrina so I would submit a lousy pathfinder for publication (it got brutally rejected), and mostly working in an office with some of the most amazing librarians on the face of the earth... that office no longer exists.
You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, and we didn't take advantage of the time that we had all together in one place. I have to say I am incredibly grateful for Facebook, but I wish we could all have a reunion and have things the way they were, just for an hour or two.
It just seems strange to me that such an important part of your life can't be revisited.
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1 comment:
I know what you mean. I keep thinking I'd like to go back to grad school times, but really only 2 people are left in that city anyway. And even if I did move back, the one I miss the most will be moving on in a few years when she finishes her Phd.
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