The Continuum of Frienship

This morning I woke with a splitting headache. I don't understand it! There is no reason that this should be happening to me! Maybe I have a brain tumor? Or need a new glasses prescription?? Oh, OK, OK. It could have had something to do with the three glasses of wine I had last night. I was catching up with an old friend I hadn't seen in 7 years and it seemed necessary to partake in alcoholic beverages to commemorate the occasion.

This particular friend, let's call him 'Henry', and I have an odd, see each other every 5-7 years friendship. I met him when I was 12 and living in Asia. He lived in England. We went on a date to McDonalds and watched Last Action Hero starring Arnold Schwarzenegger at the cinemas. Who would have thought that 18 years later we would be having dinner in LA, a city governed by that very same movie star? Life is weird, isn't it?

I wrote to Henry after he went back to England, anxiously detailing the trials and tribulations of an expat 12 year old girl's life and adventures. I'm sure those letters were very interesting... "last Sunday we went on a junk to an undeveloped island where I was again forced to eat pigeon heads, and I am now number 3 on James Christopherson's list of favorite girls at school...the saga continues". Henry, in turn kept me up to date with British boy's boarding school antics. I moved country at 14 and we lost touch. No problem. Life threw us together again 5 years later when I decided to do a year abroad at a British university and who did I happen to see on the first day at college? You bet. Henry, all grown up. We easily reaffirmed our friendship and took it from there. Since then I have had dinner with him in London, Sydney and LA. I think it is strange how life pops certain people up time and time again and other people never cross your path a second time. What is there to learn from these encounters?

It's interesting how effortless these meetings are and how little we change over the years. Henry talked about how time seems to disappear in these moments and you wonder if you really have been living in Singapore or LA or wherever these past few years, it sometimes seems as if no time has passed at all and the other life in between was some kind of dream. The continuum of friendship surpasses time. Perhaps to reference Shakespeare, friendship "is not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/ Within his bending sickle's compass come". That is what is so nice about seeing people from the past. It reminds us of all of our youthful dreams. Although we age, we see each other as we once were, two 3 foot 2" kids, dreaming of our futures over big macs and the spectacle of action heroes. We were going to conquer the world. Perhaps we still are? Certainly Schwarzenegger is part of the way there and he's from Austria!