(no subject)

I was looking through old yearbooks from the 1950s at work tonight, it's something I do when there's no one coming into the library and homework is just not an option. It gets me every time, looking at the faces of young kids, eager to go out into the world, just starting their lives. Every one of those faces is old now, and many of them are no longer around. As I flip through the pages, as I read the descriptions of college life, as I picture in my mind how the scene in each photograph continued after the camera had captured a single moment, the students on those pages seem to come to life. I wish I could go back to those days, and just observe. Sit in the hallway in one of our dormitories and just watch what life was like here when they were still young and full of hope. I think I wouldn't be surprised to find that it wasn't so completely different as life is here for me.

I think as I'm getting older, I'm beginning to see people who came before me and relate to them better. I'm starting to realize that they, too, were young and had dreams and aspirations, just as I do. I am beginning to relate to my mother better in that respect.

Looking through all those faces has left me with ghosts of the past. I was doing a walk-through of the library right before we closed, and I was the only one on the bottom floor, but I swear I felt someone there. I was almost afraid, and my instinct was to leave as quickly as possible. But now I'm thinking that maybe I was just being haunted by the students who used to study down there. Imprints of days and hours and minutes long past.