First day of school and he already has made friends. His joy knows no bounds.
Years pass and he’s sure that they will be together forever.
They attend dozens of birthdays, school events and other events together. They know all about each other. Their names are the first in each others’ phone number diaries and after they get cell phones, their names are saved forever in a way that shows personal connection with the person on the other side of the receiver whether it be an endearing nickname or special ordering of the name. They are the best friends.
Until the end of the 8th grade, when he realizes that he isn’t even sure who “They” are. Not one of his friends from first grade is in this group, some having left the school, some leaving due to the development of different interest. It seems that they are a group with a constantly revolving door as their entrance and exit with some people merely glancing in before they are pushed outside.
He has to leave at the start of the 9th grade but he’s convinced that he can keep in touch with them.
Little does he know that he will only have one meeting with them in the next ten years.
He moves to his second school, again he finds new friends.
Again he becomes they.
This time due to the onset of puberty, their activities are more exciting and memorable and thus this bond based on discovering and/or experiencing things for the first time together is going to be very strong.
Or so he reasons, despite the protests of experience and coming-of-age movies.
They share heart breaks, the stress of high school and a million other things.
Once high school ends, they take different paths and all the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put them together again. They meet after 7 months yet when they sit together, silence engulfs them, they know all about each other so the thrill of knowing something new doesn’t exist but they have been apart for so long that it seems as if they have nothing in common at all. It is then he understands that some people that you deem to be your friends are nothing more than companions you are forced with because have to sit in a room with them for 5 days a week and as soon this compulsion is removed, they are no longer your companions.
University starts and again it happens. New groups are formed and new experiences are shared.
He still relishes the thought of making new friends for that one perfect moment, when a person is more of an ideal than a real person, when every conversation is filled with a million pauses, each pause pregnant with a thousand unanswered questions, the participants verbally fencing with each other, now feinting with a yawn, now parrying with a question.
And University ends.
But it is not the end this time. The time in an institute ending has never been the end, it has never been the end.
He realizes this at the meetup with his grade 1 friends that there has been this one other perfect moment which he always seems to ignore, the moment when you have such a connection with a person that you don’t want to imagine what could have been, for what is, is good enough. He realizes this as they sit together and after just an hour of talking, they understand each other again. The differences that were seemingly insurmountable continue to exist, yes, but as paradoxical as it sounds, though they are changed, they are still the same people that were once friends. They just sit there in silence for hours on end, not talking, for there’s none required.
