After you've graduated from college, going back to visit is an adjustment. Your images of friends, students, and teachers you knew are often frozen from when you last saw them. Sometimes, you get jarring reminders that time has moved on.
About a year after I'd graduated, I visited college and spent a large part of that time with KCOU DJs. One DJ friend and I went to see another DJ friend with whom I'd worked the previous year. After talking to me for a little while, she started talking shop about the station with our other friend. She talked about her plans since being named Music Director and that "(she) asked for two" DJs to help her review new albums.
I thought, "She's Music Director now? Wow, good going. She has a position of authority now, similar to what I had when I was Jazz Director. Good for her." However, I also thought, "I'm happy for her, but almost a year ago, she was talking about her first impressions of the station and how happy she was just to be there. She has become truly immersed in the station since then. Time has really accelerated since I was on the air there."
The expression, "You can't go home again," isn't always accurate. Often, you can go home again--but not everyone and everything in it will be exactly as you remember it.
