I listened to music the whole way from Grand Central to Bedford Park Boulevard on the 4 train, so it wasn't until I stepped off and started the walk from the subway station to my high school that I started to get a little nervous. "Nervous" isn't exactly the right word; I may not have taken that subway every day in high school, but I was certainly more than used to it. Everything was the same, except there was a little more construction around the Bronx Science building than the last time I was there in June. Everything was the same, so why was I so apprehensive?

I've actually told family members and friends that I wasn't going to go back until I was "fancy" enough that they asked me back to talk to students. It was sort of a joke; and it was sort of not. I skipped homecoming in favor of seeing a Broadway show with my Big, and I do think I made the right choice then. But I arrived home for my winter break from college and was consumed by this inexplicable desire to go back. So I did, and everything was the same except that I was walking in a different entrance and handing the security card my driver's license and getting a sticker that declared me a "Visitor." When did that happen?

I had a mental list of teachers I wanted to visit, but they were all in the middle of teaching when I arrived, so I just wandered. I found a couple of friends--some visiting like me, and some who were younger, sitting where I was only a year ago. I walked up and down the staircases, just like I had during my senior year free periods when I didn't have anyone to sit with. I forgot that now that I was a "Visitor," I could've taken the elevator. That should have felt like such a victory to the senior-year version of myself. How could I forget a thing like that?

And then the bell rang, and the hallways flooded, and I was struck by just how young many of the faces looked. Sure, they were almost all taller than me; you'd be hard-pressed to put me in a room where that wasn't true. But they looked so young. It's only been a year, but one year ago or two or three or four, did I look that young? I didn't walk around those hallways feeling "wise" by any means, but I did feel "old" in a strange way. I can't call myself "wise" because I don't think I can advise any of them yet on how to get through a place like Bronx Science. I can tell them how I made it through the college process and how I got exactly what I wanted and how that wasn't a school with a fancy name and reputation; but I can't tell them how to get through Bronx Science, because part of me feels like it's still there. Who am I to pretend like I understand it?

I've had this dream before, in my bed in my dorm room at college, that all of a sudden I'm back in the Bronx Science hallways, in a classroom, in the cafeteria, and the whole semester at college didn't actually happen. It wasn't actually real, and actually, I'm still in high school. Sometimes it's a dream while I'm sleeping, and sometimes it's a thought that flickers through my head while I'm awake. So when I was actually walking through those hallways again, for the first time since my last day, I kept looking down to see the "Visitor" sticker on my shirt that meant I was an alum and not a student. But what was I trying to prove with that sticker?

Because the truth is, I had a really good time visiting. I got to talk with teachers who changed the ways I viewed the world and shaped the ways I interact with people. I talked to them and connected with them in new ways, and understood them a little better. Above all, I was able to see them as people, not as teachers. I'm not going to pretend this was the first time that ever happened, and that this was some huge epiphany, but it was definitely a shift. Because the truth is also that some of my former teachers are probably people I would have liked to be friends with, if we had met a different way. So why can't we still be some sort of friends now?

I've met people who said they regret going to Bronx Science, and I don't feel the same way. But I do feel something. I wouldn't do it all over again if I had the opportunity, but I don't regret having done it. I walked in those doors again seriously thinking I might have to throw up, but I didn't. I walked in those doors again as a graduate wanting to make peace with four years of ups and downs, and I did. I walked in those doors again wanting to understand something I can't even articulate, and I think now I do.