Please welcome today’s guest writer, Michael Klingenberg. Michael graduated Calvin in 2019, majoring in English with a focus on creative writing. He lives in Ionia, Michigan but frequents Grand Rapids both for friends as well as work in Calvin’s Prince Conference Center, where he is the building supervisor. In his time off, he volunteers in his church’s A/V team, hosts multiple Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, and spends as many waking hours as he can playing with his baby daughter and loving wife.
If there is one lie that was told to me over and over again in my time of this planet, it’s that “your twenties are the best time of your life!” or some variation of that same idea—that when you’re in college (or that college age range) it’s the time for parties and mistakes. I saw so many peers simply flourish in those times. Some even peaked, if I’m honest. But everywhere I went it was the common sentiment that these were the best of times, the freest of times, and that I’d never get those times back.
But if you asked me when the hardest time of my life was, the time I cried the most or had the most emotional breakdowns, I’d tell you it was in my three years in college. Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade those times for anything. I learned so much from amazing faculty and staff, I made memories that I still replay fondly now and again, and I laid the groundwork for my marriage all along my time in secondary school. But the kinds of pressure and expectations put on students at that age is criminal in my mind. Without getting onto a soap box as best I can manage, the road laid out for college students is an unnecessarily hard one, and I both congratulate those who make it through and pray for those currently within the thick of it. Things like financial stability, personal time management in and out of classes, balancing relationships both desired and necessitated, all with the threat of things like academic probation and the like hanging over is enough to test anyone’s metal.
So why then, after all these years away from my alma mater, did I take a job there? And more importantly, why do I miss those times now that I’m here?
It’s hard to say, though I’m sure sentimentality has a part to play. But so much has changed, even in just five years, so how sentimental can you really get? The library got a remodeling, the J-Term is all but gone, faculty have come and gone, and departments have merged or disappeared altogether. I look at the students and the staff and recognize none. It evokes memories of moving out of my first apartment, a place I’d lived in for two years, now seeing it empty and devoid of what made it a place I loved.
But there are also small pieces that stand the test of time. Some faculty that have been tenured since my parents attended still roam the halls, still enlighten new minds, and still ramble off stories they tell to fresh faces each year. The auditorium and field house still stand as monuments to the gatherings they have housed. The coffee in the café still tastes as okay as it ever has. Sometimes things change with time, and that’s okay. It’s more than okay in fact; it’s essential. But sometimes you need to know what will change and what may not. People change because people are always changing. The culture changes because of course it does. The buildings change somewhat, because how else will the campus accommodate it’s student body? But the old wood and school colors of the buildings, the trees and lawn with students resting in sunlight, the simple fact that life goes on and is in many ways repeating itself with new faces that, while not yours or mine, are still living out a part of their life so much like one of our past, is something truly comforting if you allow it to be.
I’ve been back to work here for almost a year now, and it wasn’t until this month that I really found how many people still can be found roaming the halls that I recognize from my time here. Old stories come up, memories I like to replay in my mind come alive in word and laughter behind the eyes of someone else who replies those same memories.
But times are not the same anymore. And that’s okay. Life changes, and if we went back to those times we remember as we are now, who would recognize us then? No, a return to the past is not what the future was made for. It’s fine to get on that bus or reminiscence and see the sights, maybe even ride with someone you know. But don’t get off. It’s not your stop. We do memory the greatest service by learning from it and making things better than they were, not by pining for what was.
