Its always a strange feeling meeting old friends, especially people with whom you were once close to but haven't had contact with in a very long time. Today, i met two such people.
It wasn't exactly an awkward experience - amazingly enough, when we bumped into each other, saying hello and picking up a conversation seemed like the most natural thing to do. But as such chance meetings go, they don't usually last very long; just enough time to say hi, ask what each are doing now, exchange numbers and promise to meet up in some undetermined future date. Both encounters lasted less than a minute.
But as i turned and walked away, a flood of questions came into my mind. I couldn't help but wonder how their lives had been filled in the years that we haven't talked or met. I couldn't help but try to imagine whether they were the same person or has something fundamental changed? They looked the same, if anything, better than the last time i saw them. They talked the same, laughed the same, and smiled at me as though we had just met yesterday.
Its quite amazing if you think about it: being apart for years, and when chance brings you together again, its almost as though so little has changed. But we've all changed. Older, wiser, more mature. We can't possibly still be the same, can we? Then why does nothing feel different?
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