The Past Tastes Bittersweet

Prompt: Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?

In my first semester of junior year, I wanted to go back–to the six weeks of summer I spent at a math camp in Columbus, Ohio. And yet, when I first arrived, I was convinced that the experience would be six mundane weeks of staring at symbols and numbers for hours on end. 

Although the daily problem sets did take up most of my time, I gradually improved as the weeks passed. From a handful of assumptions, I learned to make conjectures, test their validity, and discover lines of reasoning to establish them as proof. Numbers and their properties, primality, modular exponentiation, quadratic reciprocity: the sheets of scratch paper became grounds for discovering how beautiful theorems emerged from the mundane. 

Equally as engaging as the mathematical content were the people I met at that math camp. It didn’t matter if a fellow camper was from Texas, California, Virginia, Illinois–we were there to explore together, sixty strangers of different backgrounds. Our love for math extended to all aspects of the program, from dining hall debates to late-night conversations and spontaneous creative projects. 

I made some of my deepest friendships at that math camp because of this atmosphere of constant learning, both from the problem sets and from each other. Laughter echoing throughout the halls of our dorms with the satisfaction of when the concepts we encountered finally made sense. These peers transformed the mundane into the unforgettable, core memories that have endured to this day. On the last day of camp, I remember the teary-eyed goodbyes and the promises to stay in touch as we returned to our normal lives.

Inevitably, as junior year began, my summer friends and I drifted apart. We had our own lives to live, different schools, different friends, and different time zones. In the back of my mind, I knew that I couldn’t go back, that my time there was a chapter closed and a chapter I could not return to. However, a part of me still longed for the same late-night conversations that were being replaced by late nights of practice and schoolwork before my eyes.

It was not until the second half of the semester that I realized fixating on the past prevented me from moving forward. Yes, I wanted to return, but wishful thinking wouldn’t take me back. There was nothing that I could do that would take me back. For the time being, the paths that my summer friends and I took had irreversibly diverged. Accepting this situation made me shift my focus away from the rose-tinted summer of my past and towards making the most of the possibilities that my present experiences offered.

By letting go, I made room for the experiences that eventually shaped me in the upcoming years. Long runs with cross country teammates. Using photography to find beauty hidden within the ordinary. Exploring deeper and different mathematical topics using the skills I’d gained from that math camp. I realized that I couldn’t let a single experience define me. Instead, this experience became one of many foundations contributing to the continuously shifting mosaic of my identity.

I’ve realized that the feelings of nostalgia and wanting to return to the past don’t ever really go away, but I can use those feelings to shape and steer my present and future experiences. I’m grateful to have gone to that math camp the summer before my junior year. I’m glad that I met so many interesting and inspiring people, most of whom I am no longer in touch with today. Because even though our paths have diverged, these people have shaped my values and have helped me become a better person. Because the first step of growing stronger is letting go.