The Places We’ve Been

Some places can bring you back to a certain time in your life. I suppose they can be either good or bad times. For some people, smells can do this, or maybe a song.

In my current job, I work immediately next to a place that does this for me. In my case, it brings me back to a good and meaningful time in my life. This place happens to now be an apartment complex of sorts, but was once a hotel that I lived in for a little over three months. It sounds weird to live in a hotel for that long, but I was on a “business trip”, if you will.

These days, when I see this complex, and more specifically the room I stayed in, it makes me happy and it makes me think. Immediately upon my eyes making contact with that room, I am automatically brought back to that space and time, back to 2005. Back then, my life was significantly different than it is now. I will say that my current life is better, but it is different. Back in 2005 I had much less responsibility, both personally and professionally. I came and went as I pleased and work did not come home with me.

I am reminded of that, and almost feel like I am back in that situation every time I look across that field and see those apartments. I do not have the ability to put that feeling into words on a screen, but trust me when I say that I can feel it deep in my gut. Some, if not most, of you know this feeling, I am sure. Or, I am at least hopeful, because it is a visceral feeling.

I can remember working over nights and sleeping during the day. I can taste the free breakfasts I would partake in after my shifts. I can feel the warmth of the pool water washing over me.

I suppose these feelings make me both happy and sad, and I can't quite figure out why that is. The happy feeling makes sense I suppose. I have fond memories of the location and everything that the work I was doing has provided me. The freedom, the mostly carefree attitude of the months I was there. But why the sad? Do I long to go back to that time in life, if even for a short period of time? Is this a midlife thing? Whatever it is, it is weird, but the feeling is real.  

I can’t remember the names of the people I worked with at that time, but I can see their faces. But that feeling. That feeling is as clear as day.

It is strange that all these years later, I work about 200 yards from this meaningful place. Sometimes when I get an extended break from otherwise endless meetings, I will go park my car in direct line of sight to that old hotel room. I look at it and get that feeling. I wonder what those people are up to these days. I wonder how my life would be different if I did not get this experience. I want to go knock on the door and see how I would feel walking into that room. Strange, I know.

Do you have a place like this? Do you ever go visit it and get those memories and that feeling, if even for a few short minutes? Why do some places hold this sway? What is a good phrase for this feeling? It is odd, but it is interesting.

-Houston Bailey