The Ghosts Of Memories’ Past

“Why does everything feel so different?” I said to myself, with confusion and heartache. “I got my favorite teacher yet again, for a second year in a row, but it doesn’t feel anything like last year.” I thought to myself. Why is it so different? Why doesn’t it feel the same? Why does everything feel so strange and foggy? “Take me back. Take me back to last year, someone take me back please.” I continued crying to myself, almost unable to breathe from the anxiety I was feeling. As I walk past my old classroom from last year, with my favorite teacher, who is like a second mother to me, I stop by the door, and look through the window. The lights are turned off, all I could see was the moon shining bright enough to give the classroom a gentle glow. And suddenly, my chest felt tight, and a salty and hot liquid came pouring down my face. A tear. Before I could wipe the escaped tear away, a wave of tears began pouring down my face like a typhoon, and I found myself leaning against the window of the classroom, staring into the emptiness, as I watched all the memories I had made with my favorite teacher flash before my eyes. I watched as they replayed in front of my face. From memory to memory, my voice, and hers, echoed in my head as I remembered the conversations we had, the laughs we shared, the tears that I shed in her arms, all the memories I had made with her came back to me like the ghosts of memories’ past. The nostalgia I was feeling in that moment was too much to bear, I put a hand over my heart and held it, thinking it might just slow the pain down, but it did not. “I thought this year would be the same with her, why does it feel like this?” my heart cried out. It was bad enough that I had just started tenth grade, the first year of high school, feeling like I do not recognize anything, and I am stuck all alone, in a void. I thought that having my favorite teacher again, the person who got me through the previous year, who became like a second mother to me, and who is the only person who feels like home and comforting to me, would make me feel at ease, because she is the only person who is familiar to me. But something was not right. At the beginning, everything seemed to be the same, but as the week went by, I was quick to realize that it was in fact not like last year. Everything felt strange, unfamiliar. It troubled me immensely, because this was supposed to be the one and only thing that was supposed to be familiar to me, comfort me. I did not know what to do, and to this day, I still do not know what to do. All I could think of was how this is going to be the last year I will ever have her as my teacher, and the fact that it is being wasted like this. To the normal person, a teacher means nothing to them, they are just an “annoying” figure of authority who gives too much work to do and yells a lot. But not this teacher, not her. To me, she was like a second mother who was always there for me and always took care of me and worried about me, and I loved her. I loved her with all my heart and never, not once, did I ever think she was “annoying” like all the other teachers were. She was the only exception. She made me feel like I could tell her anything and everything, without being judged. I felt like we were the same person, we felt the same things, had the same personality and thoughts and feelings, we were sensitive in the same way. She really was, and is, the only person who can make me smile even when I am at my lowest. That was how I had known her. But this year just feels so unsettling and tense. I hate the feeling of it. I cannot stop overthinking about it because it just hurts my heart to see how everything feels so unfamiliar to me, when it should not. I lay awake at night, unable to sleep, holding onto every memory I have with my favorite teacher, and replaying them all in my mind, desperately hoping that what I am experiencing now is nothing but a nightmare that I am surely about to wake up from. I cannot sleep every night knowing that I was so over the moon to find out that I had gotten my favorite teacher for a second year in a row, only to face the shattering reality of it not being anything like the previous year. Most people cry over a breakup, or a deceased loved one. And what am I crying about? This terrible feeling of nostalgia and heartache. I try to put up a strong front for everyone I interact with every day, but deep down I am just a little girl who wants and needs the familiarity of her favorite teacher back. I cannot help but walk past my old classroom, every day, looking through its window, and crying my heart out. The phrases “Where did all the time go? Where did my sense of security and familiarity go? Why does this always happen to me? Where am I? Is any of this real? Why don’t I recognize anything anymore?” echoed in my head, like the voice of a confused and helpless, lost soul. I desperately wanted all of this to be a bad dream that I was going to wake up from. But it was not. It was the harsh reality that I had to face, every day, for the rest of the year. I felt paralyzed, shocked, and so disconnected from my surroundings. I slowly began to lose myself, without even realizing it. This was certainly not the happy conclusion I had imagined, it was a tale full of sorrows and woes that had just begun, yet again. This was not the place that used to be so comforting, it is not the place that I had been dreaming of returning to, all summer long. This was more than just a cut in the heart, it was something that ran so incredibly deep, the cut that will always bleed, until the little girl in me finally gets back the familiarity of her favorite teacher, her second mother, her entire world and bundle of joy. Walking past my old classroom has never felt emptier. It is like I am rewatching my memories flash before my eyes, so vividly and closely, yet so far away at the same time. I can feel all the emotions that every memory owns. I can feel it all: the emotions, the feelings, the energy, everything. All the noise around me quiets down, and it is me, my memories, and the classroom only. “Why are you torturing yourself like that?” you may ask. I have the answer for you: finding comfort in past memories can help you hold onto them, long enough to bring them back, if you are lucky. That is my coping mechanism, you can say. It is a way for me to somehow hold onto the familiarity that I once felt, in hopes of bringing it back to me before it is too late. But before I leave you, I would like to give you a warning: do not wait too long, because while you are waiting, time is slipping away, it will be gone before you can even blink, and you will lose what you are desperately trying to hold onto.