Reunion

A few weeks ago I had a reunion of the people I was in Africa with ten years ago. Ten years. It seems hard to believe. In many ways it seems like yesterday that I signed out of school with a nonchalant  "Got to go, I'm off to Africa!" (yes, I was that much of a knob but in my defence I was only 16). I still remember a lot of the details almost forensically; the in jokes, the silly sayings, the things we did and most of all the people involved.

I must admit I was a little apprehensive about meeting everyone again. For the most part, and despite conscious effort, I have lost touch with a lot of them. People drift apart especially when they are fairly spread out and following their own lives, career paths  and such like. Perhaps the age we were at made it worse; we were going off to uni or travelling and generally spreading out and going through a lot of changes. Facebook also has a lot to answer for. It makes it easy to keep in touch with people passively so one sees what's happening in people's lives without having to make an effort. In short, I only properly kept in touch with one of them.

What surprised me most about the reunion is how little everybody had changed. Yes we have all grown up, (mostly) got jobs, degrees and several have even gotten married in the interim but looking round the table during the night out, everyone looked (and by and large was acting) exactly the same. Apart from slight changes in sartorial tastes (mostly for the better) nobody looked any different. Furthermore it was incredible how we all picked up pretty much as we left off. Apart from a tiny wee bit of awkwardness at the very start, it was as if we had only met up a few weeks ago, not ten years.

For some reason I found the latter aspect especially terribly reassuring. Friendships do last, even in this increasingly transient world (and I admit I am very guilty of upping sticks and moving to the other end of the country). The bonds forged by shared experience and life events last a decade at least, hopefully a lifetime.

Apart from making me incredibly nostalgic, the whole evening made me profoundly glad I had the opportunity to meet and get to know such a wonderful group of people. Not just get to know them but get to experience what we did together.

Hopefully it won't be as long as ten years before we all meet again. The reunion has certainly galvanised my resolve to keep in touch with more of the group and broken that awkward stalemate that can arise out of substantial gaps in communication.

For now, Sopa!

JR