Being back at El Camino Academy (ECA) is always a little bit weird for me... or at least it has been the last couple of times I've been back. I've learned that what made ECA that amazing place I struggled to leave were the people. The people were the ones who crawled into my heart and dug an ECA-shaped hole. And it's the people that continually change at ECA... it's the people who come and it's the people who go. So in a practical sense, ECA is never really the ECA it was the year before.
However, I love walking into the building and being overwhelmed by a rush of familiarity. I love closing my eyes and remembering the countless hours spent in the halls. I like walking into the classrooms and remembering my different teachers each year. I love smiling and saying hello to familiar office staff and Colombian teachers. And then of course, there are a couple familiar American faces.
But only a couple.
Yesterday when I was at ECA I was struck by the fact that I was more comfortable with teachers than with the majority of the current students. Sure, I still have some friends who are students there, the vast majority of my "friends" there are now teachers. Strange. So, sure enough... I had a lunch date set up with Lauren... a dear, dear friend from Illinois who now teaches at ECA.
I will still always love coming back to ECA. Always. But in a true sense of the meaning... I'm never going back to the ECA I left. I'll probably always have people to say hi to, given my mom's job at the school and I'll probably always feel pretty comfortable roaming the hallways. But I'll always reminisce and always remember and always miss the ever-changing ECA that I spent so many years at.
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