Down the lane of memories...thro' a Re-union

"Recall it as often as you wish, a happy memory never wears out"

- Libbie Fudim

Memories of my childhood days still linger in a corner of my mind as I remember all my friends and the way I used to interact with them, all the fun, mischief we have been up-to during those days!

But gone are these days! They are now, what seem to be some distant memories like some old stories buried amidst the various chapters of the book that we call life... As years go by, I see the increasing distance between my childhood memories and I as new ones are making their way into my mind! At every phase of life, I have met new people who each has had a role to play in determining who I am today and who I have always meant to be. And amongst those people, feature those childhood friends whom I have last seen when I was in Standard 6(Grade 6, as we now call it). That's 15 years ago! I had lost contacts with almost every one of them- until we found each other on the social network websites- such as Hi5(who remember having a *bling-bling* account on Hi5? I do!), MSN messenger( my favourite part of it was Nudging my friends who were taking too long to reply back)...Facebook came a bit later! But that's how I reconnected with my primary school classmates- Online!

One of the ways of reminiscing your childhood days, is going through the old photos. That's what I thought was the best way-until the idea of a re-union popped up. And that's what my ex-classmates and I did! We organised one! (Well, we did attempt to plan one in 2012 but was never put into action). This time, we tried to make it a must to attend the call! Of course, not everyone could show up! You all know how it is, if you wait for everyone to be free, then you will have to wait till the age of retirement when you will actually be free of responsibilities! But right now, we are all grown-up adults with lots of commitments! Being able to free yourself for a few hours could be considered as a luxury when you are adulting! But it is also important to make time for some leisure time in life, otherwise we'll turn into those boring people who only leave their home to go to work and supermarkets to buy groceries and back home to eat and sleep- No social life at all!!! Uggh!! 

But back to the "Re-Union" now! The plan was made with the idea of gathering a maximum of the ex-classmates of my primary school, knowing that some of us have migrated abroad, some are married, some are even parents of beautiful kids, some work at night, etc etc... We had to confirm who was agreeable with the idea, and to agree on a common date, and a place to meet! And I honestly love Facebook for having given us this opportunity to be able to discuss things via posts or even messenger. So during those days, I remember that there was about 30 children in my class. And for the re-union, only 7 (including me) showed up! Yet we considered it to be a successful one because we actually did it. To be honest, I had mixed feelings before actually going, because I was afraid to be the only one showing up! But then, I was reassured by the 6 others who till the last minute remained firm about being absolutely in for the event. 

The meeting was like an effervescence of joy and re-introducing ourselves as the adult we have now become, talking about our achievements, future plans and talking about the friends that we might have encountered during the past 15 years and what have they become, and enquiring about those whom we did not see or heard from after the CPE exams(Now called the PSAC-I still find it easier to refer to it as Std6/CPE, btw). Once upon a time we were all students of the same class, reading aloud comprehension texts in class, playing hide and seek during the lunch break, football(boys vs girls), conspiring the most evil pranks against our "boring" teacher....and now, look at us-Grown-up Adults! We all have accomplished something of which we are proud of-both-ourselves and  of each other! Remembering and relating all the things we did together, only brought smiles and laughter to each one of us! The only dull moment we had, was realizing that we are now grown-up and that we can't go back to those days! And also, realizing that the future generations will not be having as much fun as we had, back then!

Although we all now have Facebook, Messenger, Instagram to keep in touch with each other, but honestly, the fun experienced when in real company of old friends cannot be compared to digital communication. The joy and rush experienced in our heart cannot be described by words! Do you agree with me?

As it is truly said, "A new friend is valuable, but old one is priceless". One day, when you are going to tell tales of your childhood to your kids, and these people are going to be the characters of those tales and you will laugh at yourself for all the things you have ever done! Just like, one of my favourite childhood memories will forever be when my friends and I used to doodle on the teacher's pants as he would sit on our table during the class- with the "pure intention"of ensuring that his clothes were washed daily! Of course, later on he found out who were responsible for it but we managed to escape punishment! And we used to climb up the walls to be able to go to the pastry shop that was located a few metres away from school during lunch break! Well...looking at us now, nobody would believed that we actually did such thing! 

Before I end my today's post, I would like to add that wherever we end up in life, we all owe a big part of that to the people who contributed in building you and giving you the fondest of memories! And to all my childhood friends, I would like to say that I am proud of each one of you and I wish you all the best in whatever you accomplish in the future! 

And you, my beautiful readers, if you are yet to catch up with your ex-classmates, then I would advise you to go and plan your "re-union" and have fun, recollecting your good, old memories!

Till my next post,