Young Me, Now Me

I haven't been very active here (or on Flickr) recently. A combination of the encroaching cold, midterms/homework, and having done the same things repeatedly with visitors has left me without a whole lot of new things to share. I'll have to be more creative in coming up with things to put up here.

The title of this post is a reference to the excellent blog/project, Young Me/Now Me, in which people recreate old baby/childhood pictures of themselves. Unfortunately, I have not done this. I do, however, have a bit of my past. On my way to Wyoming last July, I made a point of finding my old elementary school in Evanston, IL (just outside of Chicago).



I attended Willard Elementary from kindergarten through 2nd grade. I have some surprisingly lucid memories of this place. Recess in the snow, scraped knees, friends, bullies, Mrs. Bee (Bartholomew, really) and her bee themed room, and, of particular relevance here, where and how I hurt myself doing stupid things. The cement stairs pictured were where we lined up to enter the building. One morning I happened to be running up those stairs and slipped on ice which resulted in me cracking my chin on the corner of a cement step. I vividly recall making my way to the nurse's office trailing blood behind me. The swings at the bottom were where I attempted to imitate the older boys that were doing back-flips (sort of) off of the swing. I tried and, of course, failed. I landed on my chin, again, and somehow bit down into my tongue, immediately filling my mouth with blood. Once again, I made my way to the nurse spitting mouthfuls of blood everywhere. The yellow spiral slide is actually where my brother jumped off and broke his arm. I remember this because I thought it was great that I got to leave school early when my mom came to take him to the hospital.

As these things usually go, seeing this place again, I was struck by how small it all seemed. It's provided some interesting symmetry with some of what I've been thinking about lately. Being in graduate school, I'm constantly reminded of how vastly more intelligent or ambitious than me some people are. Not that this sends me into crippling self-loathing, but it recalibrates the expectations that I have for myself. Those swings were a major fixture in my life for a couple of years, but I outgrew them. Later on, as most teenagers tend to, I thought I was a lot cooler and smarter than I actually was. Now, it's both sobering and illuminating to be presented with another imposing obstacle. Maybe some years later I'll look back and marvel at how I could have been so daunted by it, but for now I'll just have to try and do a back-flip off of it.