A trip down memory lane

This week, my work took me to a town where I had not set foot in seventeen years.
In 1989, I took the infamous scuba diving ITC (Instructor Training Course) there, a week-long, intense, boot camp-style class one never forgets. The fact that I felt a magnet-like physical attraction to one of my instructors perhaps helped make it memorable. But no, a lot happened that week and it was memorable in many more ways than that.

When I made up my mind to pop up by the shop, while in town, I very much planned on having a little fun with my two mentors, should either of them be there at the time. I was convinced they wouldn't recognize me right away, so I intended to play the dumb customer for a while, asking naïve questions and pulling their chains a little.

Not so. As I entered the shop, the first pair of eyes that met mine belonged to one of the two instructors, and I saw both instant recognition and surprise on his face. Seventeen years and he identifies me within a quarter of a second? I was robbed of my fun!

He offered me coffee and I stayed and chatted for nearly an hour, catching up on a decade and a half. Although the store had moved up a couple of streets, I was struck by how unchanged everything was. My friend had not changed much; their activities had not changed much. It was as if time had stood still there in my absence. In this world of change and chaos, that time can almost be still somewhere stuns and fascinates me.

I think I will go back. I am very curious now. I want to find out whether something that remains the same attracts me, like a pillar of stability in a sea of chaos, or whether it makes me restless and longing for new interests.
I've seen so much, done so much, changed so much in seventeen years, am I really the same person I was? Will I find out that they actually changed too, once I dig a little deeper? I, the ever-changing fickle free spirit, am mesmerized by stability. I want to know if it can be achieved without stagnancy. I will find out.