Tuesday 2 November 2010

Picking up bits without knowing where to place them

 Thinking of bygone days and people from the past fills me with quite a bit of nostalgia. In fact, I can soak in emotion pretty quickly but after all that downpour, I ponder. As much as I would like to reconnect with people from a time that was wonderful, I wonder whether the same vibrations will pass while meeting all of them years later.

I am often quick to suggest reunion plans, but the euphoria slowly fades away and I rethink on meeting up with old chums. Why? I don't much know. While it is quite nice to think that the same people once coloured a part of my years long ago, it does not actually excite me to think of coming together again. I would gladly meet one or two close friends but . . .

This happens almost every time. I get quite happy and chirpy when I stumble upon a person from the earlier pages of my book of life but I quickly lose that enthusiasm. Mind you, the warmth is still there but I wonder what will I talk to them and how will I sustain a conversation. Now this is not a great situation to  find oneself in. People can easily misinterpret that I am being snooty or insensitive but this is what happens to me. I find lost in reunion meetings. Well, I can manage for the first fifteen minutes when pleasantries and news are exchanged but after that, I yearn for the entire drama to be over. I cherish the memories but reconnecting in reality is a bit hassling for me.

We all change over the years. While some deem it a great compliment to receive the phrase: "You have not changed a bit," for me it is an insult. How can anyone remain the same throughout the many many years. The figure remaining the same is worth two bits of compliments but personality. If not completely, atleast here and there some changes do happen. And the fodder for reunions are always nostalgic moments where we looked slim, dated hot guys, my daughter is this and my husband bought me that and blah, blah, which is a bit too stifling.

I'd gladly pick up the bits but those bits cannot fit into the whole picture. So they are better left as bits from a bygone era. I guess I have rambled a bit too much here. And no, there was no gin and tonic involved.

Maybe you like reunions and can give me some advice on how to go about it.

36 comments:

  1. LOl! even though there was a gin or tonic I still find this post interesting and humorous! My choice would be a neat vodka or whiskey!!!

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  2. Can't help you. I'm not good at reunions either. We all change and so essentially in reunions we're meeting with strangers. Maybe, it's best to have that gin or whiskey, (in my case wine) with a newer friend, or by yourself.

    Cute post. You always make me chuckle.

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  3. How true is that! But like every reward, it can only come if efforts are made in the first place.So relationships are a little like a flower, it is fragile. It needs nurture and patience. Ah yes, also hard work at times.

    Hugs,
    Silver

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  4. Dear Susan,
    I don't think a gin and tonic would help either.
    I think there comes a time, many a time, that after long periods without being with those old friends something is lost... there are so many experiences and changes we live everyday... and as we change our friends might change as well...

    Real close friends are for life, the others I call acquaintances, who took part of my life only when the time was right.

    Sometimes we tend to force meetings so as to recall the old times... but, it is true, after a while, you realize it makes no sense.

    So i am with you here. Cannot give advice, just > thank them for being part of your history and that's it. Friendship cannot be compulsory or committing...


    hugs and joy dear one!

    D.

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  5. I agree with you here. somehow we are led to believe that we should all look the same or wear the same size as we did in high school. Why is that? Perhaps because some of us do and the rest of us would still like too.

    Trick is...to be happy for who you are from the very beginning and that will never change even if your body does.

    I'll take a rye, thanks. :)

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  6. i have never been to one actually. i have some people that found me on FB but most of what came before graduation i would rather just stay there...

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  7. I have always believed that friends remain friends despite distance and time. That is why, when I meet a former friend from times gone by, I am skeptical when they ask for my number or my email address. I know we will not call one another; so why the pretense? If we had wanted to stay in touch, we simply would have done so in the first place.

    And yet, there are friendships that live through the tests of time. They are the friendships that exist without benefit of email or telephone... they just ARE.

    And so, I'm afraid, dear Susan, that I cannot offer you any advice on how to endure reunions. I have only ever attended one reunion, and it was as you said "bla bla bla". I don't enjoy that type of event, so I'm not game, anymore.

    Warm hugs to you,
    Nevine

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  8. perhaps one of my downfalls have been to believe that we can bring the past back. I have, too many times, been proven wrong. We can't. Once in a while, an old friend becomes a great friend in the present, something new with an old foundation. But for the most part, my attempt has only ruined the perfect memories

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  9. Hi Susan, I've never been to reunions, so can't help u there. But what I do know is that it is expectations that we fear will not be met. We want to get back the good times, but except for the people involved, everything else has changed.. their lives, the atmosphere, the thought process, the growing up and becoming into somebody else.. well, somewhere one does know it can never be the same.

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  10. Yea, reunions may sound gr8. BUt it won't work out everytime. I guess with years the gloss fades away and we are left off to ourselves.

    But still once in a while we wish to relive those years

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  11. Oh, I agree with you completely. Some people you can not see for years and when you do, it is like not a day has passed since.
    But with some, too much water has passed under the bridge. Once being friends due to circumstances of life, but the same circumstances can make you grow apart.
    I never been to one single school reunion and I doubt I ever go to one.;) I choose the friends I want to be reunite with.;))
    Great writing as always my dear Susan,
    xoxo

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  12. You know, whenever I meet up with old friends from school and junior college, although we always start off with updating each other on what we've been upto, we invariably end up talking about the old days when we saw each other regularly and experienced these events that are now such cherished memories. We reminisce about these shared occurrences and laugh at all our old jokes.

    I think this is becoz it is easier to be friends with someone when we share our lives with them on a day to day basis and it is obviously much more difficult to talk with people, tho they have been close friends in the past, but with whom you dont really share much life experience at present.

    So, my advice wud be, at reunions, stick to all that nostalgia about all those old memories! :)

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  13. This is so much like me. I get excited at the thought of meeting up with old friends and then come close to the date I am less so, and think up excuses not to meet ..

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  14. As times change people change.
    And that is what we are apprehensive about.
    The best of the best friends may not be the same now.
    And it can be the other way round too.
    Like I know of a batch mate of mine who rarely used to talk to me in those days (maybe something I said rubbed him off the wrong way 30 years ago)
    But now a days he just goes on and on when ever he rings me or meets me. I am really perplexed.

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  15. Oh man! I really don't know what to say except I feel exactly the same. Its kinda frustrating considering how close you were once upon a time, but time has induced this big gap in between... and no matter how hard you try, things don't seem like they were before... but the knowledge is there that you'll be friends forever.

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  16. Firstly... ""You have not changed a bit," for me it is an insult."
    That was an excellent line.

    The problem with reunions as I see is- people from your past are unaware of your progress as a person. They expect you like similar fun, react the same way like you used to years before. Then there is this conflict and we feel ruffled. The conversations don't connect because sadly few people do remain same over years. And at times they don't in either case we can't comprehend what they say.. unless we have been in touch with them. Add to that different exposure and environment everyone is put through. Once in a project/school/college we were birds of same feather. But now thats not the case anymore. Each one is learning to live life in different ways.

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  17. ...oh, honestly... i hate reunions... it's not that i don't wanna see my relatives but it's just that i have li'l confidence when it comes to socializing with 'em... i would rather prefer tell a story to a friend or classmates but never to a relative, cousins, etc... so sorry if can't help with regards that matter... peace!!!:)

    Take care!!!:)

    >Kelvin

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  18. Dear Susan,
    Well, oddly enough I just endured my grammar school reunion, what!!! Yes, grammar school. Next question, why??? I have no idea. I wish I had drank gin, vodka, wine or something to dull the pain. LOL

    I fell victim to the Facebook connection and after a year of somewhat talking to people, well a reunion was inevitable. I wanted to go, basically because I didn't really care for many of the people who I went to school with and as immature as it sounds I wanted to show off, in a quiet understated way of course.

    I was charming and beautiful and poised and took part of the blah, blah, blah. And after those 15 minutes had passed I wanted to get the hell out of there!

    I think it is normal to feel the way you do. These people weren't terrible or deserving of my old memories of snobby, clickish and mean classmates. We were all so young back then, surely they had changed, I had, it hardly seemed fair. But although time had moved on, we all seemed to treat each other with the idea that it hadn't. It was a little strange. Yet a large group of people I had found out keep in contact with one another on a personal and regular basis. To which I felt surprised, that these people hadn't gone much far outside their comfort level and it showed as they recalled memory after memory, recanting the days of this and that.

    I couldn't relate and I went to the same school! I just didn't hold all those same memories dear, why would I, not with so many other things that had transpired in my life since then. I left feeling satisfied and checked off my did that, done that list. But once was enough for me.

    Sorry no advice to give, good luck if you decided to go. But don't feel bad if you don't either. Time moves on and it is natural to let old memories and relationships fade away.

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  19. I went to my 20th high school reunion this year, mostly because I didn't go to my 10th and was beginning to wonder what had happened to some of the people. While it was fun in the beginning, it soon soured. Everyone tried too hard to make sure that others thought they were cool. Before the night was even half over the majority were getting drunk. I left, regretting that I had come.

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  20. Savira:

    I am yet to taste Vodka :)

    Myrna:

    I see we are all the same types. I love wine. White or red, Myrna?

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  21. Silver:

    Quite true. I was thinking about meeting some friends and the meanderings led me to this post. Big hugs dear Fel.

    Dulce:

    I must do exactly that. Thank the universe for them to be part of my history.

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  22. Hope:

    Somehow, we drift apart unconsciously. Sometimes the 'best friends' of high-school years also seem a distant personality in the present.

    Brian:

    I have been to only one. All were guys except for me. I did find it rather boring :)

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  23. Nevine:

    Your thoughts here are so true. One is fast to exchange numbers and email but then it stops there. Maybe we will call them sometime but most often, we just go on with life. Warm hugs to you too dearest Nevine.

    Myriam:

    The past seems enchanting but so very eluding. I suggest, let the sleeping memories lie . . .

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  24. Punam:

    Hmmmmm.

    John:

    It is not about the gloss. It is just that we become different individuals and our tastes and preferences change as time goes by. But I have seen some people who never change and interacting with such after many years is a very arduous task.

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  25. Zuzana:

    Zuzana, we agree on so many things. We are a bit more than kindred souls and that is lovely :)

    Karishma:

    Maybe your years apart from school and junior college are very less. I wonder what your response will be after ten or fifteen years. Sometimes sticking to nostalgia also weighs the spirit down.

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  26. BM:

    Again glad to see that i am not alone on this.

    Joe:

    People invariably change. The funniest part is that people who were boring sometimes become a degree more boring than what they used to previously be. Even I am perplexed, Joe :)

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  27. Karen:

    Hmmmmm

    Sameera:

    Thanks for your kind words. They always make my day :) Probably. Some never mature and grow and that is quite irking. The true personality seems forthcoming at reunions.

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  28. Kelvin:

    With family, I haven't tried all this. I don't know how it would be. Thanks for coming by. You have a good weekend :)

    Cole:

    Charming and beautiful Cole, big hugs to ye. I loved this long long comment. Thanks for the time. You have given me the best advice on time and its vagaries.

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  29. Angie:

    The 'cool' factor is a common one in reunions. Wonder why this creeps up. I guess some of them grow quite indifferent to aging. Have a great weekend, dear Angie.

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  30. From Chaks:

    No advice is best advice. If you still want it...let your heart decide how things must proceed!

    From Pushpanjali:

    Reunions are tricky....either it brings a deluge of emotions....or else a taste of ash in the mouth! Despite the risk of disillusionment, I hanker to see those vanished faces again :)

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  31. Susan, you're pretty perceptive, I must say! Yup, six years after school and four years from junior college and I'm still in degree college! So, nostalgic memories arent all that far away, you're right! I do wonder what it'll be like a decade or so down the line..we'll just have to wait and see! :D

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  32. People do drift apart because the circumstances each one has gone through makes them a different person/mindset even may change. And yet, in the midst of all of us, there is still a chance to be as close to this new person. isnt it in a way doscovering a new identity and figuring out maybe, just maybe you hated the class bully then, but Now, she is just a wonderful person whom you can talk to.

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  33. SSQuo:

    Welcome here. How nice to meet you here. Thanks for a new perspective you have provided. True, in reunions many have fallen in love and gotten together. Reunions are multi-faceted and I completely left that wonderful part of reunions.

    Hope to see more of you and read your insights :)

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  34. ya i agree with u comppltly.....its always laughter n joy at first instance den a deep sigh pondering wat to speak next.i dont think a gin or a tonic would help...things n beahaviour too cahnges after a tyme....memories only make us nostalgic n they need to b at a right place as bygone ones.

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  35. Anonymous:

    I wish I knew your name. Gin and tonic does help -- It gives you certain happiness which makes the earlier thoughts fade.
    Bygones are bygones, right!

    Thanks for coming by and stopping to write a comment.

    Joy always,
    Susan

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