Nostaglia and catching up with friends
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I had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend over the weekend at another friend’s wedding. It had been almost ten years since we had last spoken in person and I had only kept in touch with what was going on in his life through mutual friends. It was a bit surreal to think that it had been that long, that I’ve been around long enough for that to even be the case with one of my high school classmates, and we both seemed a bit taken aback by that fact when it was aired.
Ten years seems like a long time. At that point, we had spent almost as many years out of contact as we had spent at school together, which was a crazy thought to consider.
In that time, people can change. People do change. I know I have. We chatted about all the things you talk about with someone you haven’t seen in awhile. Where we are living, jobs, that sort of stuff. Trying to build a baseline for where the other person is at right now, using the small talk to make adjustments to your prior conceptions. It’s a weird thing, to have known someone for so long but then to have to approach them almost as a stranger.
In this case, it turned out to be a dance that was hardly necessary. The decade in passed time was bridged with relative ease. The formalities of reintroductions gave way to discussions on the shared interests that had served as the basis of our friendship, interests that we both still shared all these years later. Old anecdotes of Halo LAN parties and the time Neal got a Corn Pop stuck up his nose were brought up, garnering laughs and a fair bit of nostalgia. Sure, we had changed, but in many ways were still the same as we had been in high school.
We didn’t talk for long, especially when compared to the large gap of time between last speaking. Soon enough we were back on our own separate paths, some exchanged information to keep in better contact passed on before Mikaela and I left the reception.
There’s something I didn’t really notice growing up here, and that’s the transitory nature that many people hold in our lives. That the friends you have today aren’t necessarily going to be the ones you have tomorrow, that goals and growth and the entire spectrum of things that humans experience will oftentimes take us along different paths than those we associate ourselves with at any given time. The fact that life sometimes has plans that run counter to our own makes these separating paths even more winding than they already were.
It’s interesting, and it’s something that I have certainly lamented at times. There is a feeling of loss there, with some self guilt about not having maintained better contact thrown in for good measure.
Taken to an extreme, one could even wonder what the point of forming such relationships even is, if they are only to eventually fall by the wayside. Why should such a huge effort be made in the first place?
But, the thing is, that bond still exists, even if it hasn’t been acted upon in years. Regardless of if you never even see the person again, the impact that they have left on you and vice versa still remains.
In terms of the friends you keep, that impact is hopefully a positive one. So while yes, they may not be directly in your life forever, that doesn’t mean that the time spent with the people you would call friends is wasted. It’s usually quite the opposite.
And who knows. As I stated earlier, life takes people along paths they might not expect. Sometimes those paths will intersect with one of these old friends, be it for years or two hours.
It always feels a bit odd, any time one of these chance meetings occurs, to just go back your separate ways afterwards. But that is the way of things, I suppose, to return to the status quo. I guess it’s important to just take these occurrences as they are and get whatever good you can take from them as you can.
At the very least, the conversation we had kept me away from the dance floor for a decent amount of time, which was probably a win for everyone. But it was also just good to catch up with an old friend, and I think that’s all it really needs to be.
A C ertain Point of
