Catching up with long-lost friends and reminiscing about old times

As we’ve gone through our lives we’ve seen and done a lot of things. For some people that means not much at all, growing up, working and retiring in the same place, a quiet uneventful life, perhaps not even travelling very far. For some others it adds up to quite a lot, being high achievers in school, going on to university, setting up businesses, travelling all over the world for work or on holiday, in other words a very full life. Most of us are in the middle “ordinary” category, travel perhaps once or twice a year, change jobs a few times, have a some memorable experiences. One thing we all have in common is that we meet people throughout our lives and often spend some years around them such as in school, college or university, or when working. Some become close friends, some are “regular friends”, most others merely acquaintances. As time goes by we lose touch with many of them. They go away for studies, they move to other locations to live and work, they change jobs, start families, the thousand and one things that can have even the closest friendships fade. We all change, it’s a fact of life. Which brings me to the subject of reunions. These are also a fact of life for all except the most isolated of us. The most frequent are family reunions on festive occasions like Christmas, Hari Raya, the various New Year dates, birthdays, weddings and so on. There are reunions with friends who’ve been away for some time and are back in town for a while. Then there are bigger and more occasional ones like class reunions, school reunions and such. I have to confess, I don’t enjoy those much. Some people may find that odd because these are supposed to be occasions for catching up with long-lost friends, having fun and reminiscing about old times, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the getting together, catching up and hav-ing fun. It’s the ritual reminiscing part that I don’t like, and there’s quite a lot of that happening at these events. Do you remember this or that teacher, do you remember so-and-so, do you remember that time in class when this person did such-and-such, that time when this thing happened, so funny, the old jokes from back then are brought out again, and so forth. Not what I think of as treasured memories and not things I’m particularly interested in revisiting, but out of politeness have to listen while a classmate I haven’t seen or even had any contact with since leaving school talks on and on about them. That’s just one, and there are sure to be several others. So it’ll be repeats of the same stories, jokes etc, especially if there’s alcohol available and as the evening wears on someone might come up having forgotten that he went through all that with you earlier on and starts again. Of course, each one will finish off with the compulsory ritual ending, which is as follows: a faraway gaze, a slight smile, a sigh (this is optional), and the words “those were the days”. This may be followed up with another sigh, perhaps a small shake of the head, and a glance at you signalling you to agree. That’s my cue to escape to the drink stand.