My newly renovated alma mater recently held an open house for people in the community and alumni to finally get to see all of the changes.  I decided to go and thought nothing of it – I wasn’t expecting to get emotional in any way, shape, or form.  However, when I arrived at this brand new building, I couldn’t believe how different it looked.  It has the same name and is sitting on the same spot of land as my high school but it’s completely different.  My emotions ranged from quiet indifference to jealousy to sadness and then back to jealousy and then finally back to indifference with some hunger mixed in.  I saw possibly 3000 more classrooms than we had when I went to school there, also they finally widened the hallways a little.  The choir room made me jealous because when I went to high school, we had to share the room with the band and it always smelled like spit valves and hormones (take that, band nerds).  The new choir room is designated solely for that purpose with acoustic ceiling and wall panels and a state-of-the-art sound system with strategically placed microphones for recording.  Sigh.  I could have definitely got my “Carol of the Bells” on in there but my husband would have been embarrassed. 

I did not anticipate feeling nostalgic in any way but then when I got there and fully realized for the first time that my high school no longer exists, I sort of panicked for some reason.  It was embarrassing.  It was around this time when I decided it was imperative to locate and inspect the place I held closest to my heart those four years – the Performing Arts Center.  To this drama nerd’s overwhelming happiness, it hasn’t changed a bit.  It smells exactly the same, the lights are the same, the dressing rooms are the same, the stage is the same, the curtains are the same, etc.  I could have cried – ok, I did cry a little but please don’t tell anyone; in high school, it’s not cool to care about things.