There is something about the carousel of life that brings people together, and then takes them apart. And life is made out of many of these stages, some long, some very short, and some more meaningful than others.And in some of them, you meet friends that you keep, and in others, the people you once lived and breathed with on a daily basis become fragments of the past. A familiar face in a crowd of strangers, a voice that triggers a rush of memories, a photo that reminds you of laughter and camaraderie, moments of tenderness that now echo hollow in your memories when you pass by the same places, and find that you can never recreate those moments.
Last weekend, my father drove up to Johor Bahru for a secondary school class gathering, his first in some 40 years. And as he told me about the events that transpired, I couldn't help but think if I would remember my secondary school classmates after 40 years, much less recognise them. There used to be a time when we played soccer together, and laughed and joked about the same teachers, subjects and assignments, and when I realise that those times are almost 10 years past, it makes me realise just how much I have changed since then.
However, some things never change. I looked at my old yearbook, and our class picture was a picture of each of our heads photoshopped to a football player on a football field, and below it was a one liner of our most iconic phrase. Mine was "Sure, why not." It made me laugh, because even now, I still use it. And it also made me realise that perhaps I've always had that cynical sense of humour.
Since then, I have gone through junior college, army, several jobs, university, exchange, and now internship. And through these journeys I have met friends that I know I will keep, and others that I know I cannot, because we all have different lives to lead. In several are cases where our journeys together have long reached a fork, like a river that has run its course and branched off in different directions. Somewhere along that route we might meet again, as the disparate tributaries charting our lives merge paths once more, but by that time we might be none the wiser, long lost friends who are but now trivial acquaintances, and never again more.
And sometime in the future, I will probably look back on the stages of life where I actually looked forward to every day, because the company was great and life was happier then, and wonder if such days will ever come by again. And I will realise that though the times were good while they lasted, we are all different people now, with different hopes, dreams and aspirations, and even if by some luck of the draw life were to place us all along the same course again, nothing else will be the same.