BYU re-visited

On my speed trip to Utah I was able to go with my brother to BYU campus.  It's always interesting to walk across campus, because I feel differently about it every time.

For a while BYU stood for hope and change and the rest of my life.

Then, after I was done with school (well, not DONE.  I don't have my degree), and I was married and had a kid, I'd walk across campus and think about how it would be fun to be a college kid again.  The energy.  The atmosphere.  I thought about how I could still pass as a college kid, holding a notebook and a pen and looking smart.  I ate it up.

And then we moved away from Utah and campus became a magical place lost in time.  It was like I freeze-framed my BYU experience, and every time I went back, it was those same college-age memories all over again.  Some positive, some negative.  My time at BYU wasn't all roses.  But it was a good feeling.

I guess I've been gone too long, though, because this time I went back and felt ... nothing.  I've read about my friends going back to campus and loving it.  They were re-discovering campus, feeling the positive flood of emotions, checking out the new buildings, and eating up the energy and college campus vibe.  I expected, then, to feel something like that myself.

I walked across campus, near the library, and searched around inside myself for that section set apart for BYU emotions and found the place empty.  We walked into the Administration building and it was just a building.  It wasn't the "remember when" place.  It was just an old building.

We walked back to the Wilk and went through the Bookstore and I found some emotions!  Positive ones among the religion books, and negative ones everywhere else.  I stood in one particular area, watched all the people walking around, and wanted to scream.  All I could think was, "I hate this place."  I don't know why I hate that place.  It's not like I broke up with a boyfriend at that spot.  It wasn't where I was forced to spend hundreds of dollars on text books (we didn't go into that section).  I just hated it for no reason.

To counter the intense negative that was the Bookstore, I got a chocolate milkshake.  BYU Creamery's milkshakes are still the best I've found.  We walked back to the car and I ate my milkshake.  The whole thing, even though I wasn't even hungry.  And as we drove away I thought, "If I never come to campus again, that would be just fine."

BYU chapter closed.