Leave a trail

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. "
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's that time of the year - we have been having an informal school reunion for the last couple of years (since we hit 30 years from leaving school - where did the time go :o )

The reunion is over a weekend and we camp in the most gorgeous site - it is somehow both isolated and easy to get to, with patchy mobile signal so ends up feeling a bit like a retreat, but with best friends :)

Every year I come back feeling refreshed, more centred, and full of good intentions to "sort my life out". Needless to say, not much has changed when the next reunion comes around.

And as usual the long drive (around 8 hours in total, though I built in a stopover on the way home), added to the mass nostalgia of "do you remember when...." leads to a certain amount of review and reflection.

Driving around the area I grew up in, it's the same but different. I remember these paths, they are covered with foot, hoof and wheel-prints. (We were so spoilt in terms of hacking routes !)

Around the reunion events, I normally go and revisit bits of my childhood - people or places that are not part of the reunion itself. I left the area I grew up in around the time I finished school, as my parents also moved then. When we first all left school, we would organise get-togethers at Christmas or over the summer, but those slowly petered out. And for quite a while, I found going back depressed me. I'd never really thought about why.

Now when I go back, while it is not so "down", there is still both a pull and a push emotionally. There are places I can't quite face going yet. There is every chance it would be a non-event if I did go.I find myself pacing how much history I revisit. It's as if I am reclaiming my past, reintegrating history, piece by piece.

But this time I got to wondering why....I grew up out and about on ponies every chance I got, I went through school without any fuss or bother, a straight B student. The only life events I really had to deal with were in my sixth form when my father was made redundant (and it was his new job that triggered the move away), and losing my grandfather that same year.

I'm beginning to wonder whether it wasn't the place that was depressing, but having had to leave it. Although the last year there was fairly tough, so maybe I had simply associated the place with the events.