It Was Good to Go Back

As I sit on the train, watching the countryside of Yorkshire fade into the distance, I reflect on my journey. How I got here, what I expected.

When I began the journey, planning the trip, contacting old friends, I was alternately, and at times simultaneously, filled with excitement and anxiety. What did I expect from this trip? Would I be accepted as who I was and have become or had I simply disappeared into the ether, maybe the occasional subject of some night out, nostalgic “I wonder whatever happened to” question?

I wonder if I still needed confirmation of acceptance all those years ago. After six years, had I really become one of them? Or was it all a myth in my mind.

My memories were frozen in time. In a time of youth, of growth, of change. 18 years since I’d last been back to Ripon, 25 years since moving away, 26 years since leaving Ripon Grammar school. For most of my classmates, I’d been away for 10 years longer than we’d even been alive when I left?

The memories were not so much burned in my mind as softly molded, morphing and fading over time but still the memories, the myths, the faces of youth.

So who are we now? The reality is as mundane as it is revealing. We’re no different than any other group of 16 year olds having reached middle age. We’ve enjoyed our successes, suffered our failures, known happiness and sadness, had marriages and divorces, births and deaths.

Was this such a surprise? Not really, but sometimes you have to see it to know it’s true.

Having made this journey, I can now return on my own terms, comfortable with who I am, what I have become. I can travel without the extra baggage of the past on my shoulders.

It was good to go back. And I hope to return.