Cheers To Old Friends...

Last night I got a chance to catch up with two very good friends of mine from my days at U…one of whom I hadn’t seen in well over 2 years (maybe even 3). Usually I would be a little nervous/anxious in the hours leading up to a meeting of this kind (I can be a pulsating ball of nerves sometimes), especially since it was a house party where I would only know the two people I went to school with. But you know what…for some strange reason I was as cool as a cucumber (could have been the 9 hour shift I worked before meeting up with them), and instantly upon seeing my friend N waiting for me on the street it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in 2 days, not 2 years. I even managed to ‘mingle’ a bit and seemed to have my best conversationalist hat on for most of the night. It was probably the beer...

I’m always amazed when I sit down with old friends after what seems like ages, and it’s as if nothing has changed. Sure, we’re all working different jobs now, have careers, new girlfriends/boyfriends (or in my case…still single), new apartments, new stories to tell…but when you get right down to it, we’re still the same people we were all those years ago. There’s something comforting about that.

It turned out to also be my friend N’s birthday (which I was not informed of in the invite) so that made it even nicer that I got to be there for that…and we spent the night sitting around in a big circle, chatting, drinking, smoking and laughing. My other buddy A, who was one of the ‘great’ roommates I’ve mentioned in previous blogs (J, you know who I’m talking about) was also there. N & A, as well as being good friends of mine, were also a couple for the majority of the time we were at school…they are no longer together, but as fate would have it, they now live together in an apartment in the city. Funny how things can come full circle like that.

N, after living in Australia for a couple of years, has just started a new job which sounded like it was right up her ally, and she seemed pretty happy and excited about it. A seems to be doing well too (despite a nasty health issue to do with his shoulder…). I didn’t get a chance to catch up with him as much as I would have liked as many of his work friends were there (all of whom were really cool people btw…) and he was busy spreading himself around. Of course, little old me is barely treading water compared to these two…hell the whole party was probably doing ‘better’ than I am career wise…and I definitely felt like the ‘cub’ of the pack, but despite a little awkwardness when the subject of money came up, it was clear that we’re all doing ‘ok’…we all seem to be relatively happy and content…and that’s all you can really ask for.

I’m not a very social person, that much should be clear by now…and I don’t have a lot of friends…but it was a nice feeling to know that I still have a couple more old friends still kicking around, still happy to see me after all this time, still genuinely interested in how I’m doing…and still very much the people I became friends with in the first place. It was a very pleasant, enjoyable evening and I had a really good time.

Thanks N & A. I’m sure there won’t be as long a gap before we hang out again. (I left my coat behind…so that pretty much makes it a certainty!)