181920

26th August 2007

"19. Can you believe it, that we've known each other for 19 years already?" I exclaimed in semi-disbelief as I cut into my New York Fish & Chips. Dinner was spent mostly catching up about our current lives; what we've been busying ourselves with and our current standings in our respective lives. "So what're you doing now?", "How is it?" were the common questions that littered the conversation over dinner.

The real nostalgia set in after we settled into the sofas of the nearby Starbucks; perhaps there is something in the coffee that breaches pleasantries and fosters friendships. We spoke of the common people that we knew, the last we heard of them, who was (scarily) getting married, how so-and-so was doing. We spoke of the memories we shared back in the day; the academic achievements that made us famous, and the strange incidents of mischief that made us infamous: me poking a girl... with a pencil, Zhiwei mining twisted-staples on a certain Honkie-bastard's chair, Jason being a crybaby and always threatening to "tell [his] mother" and Bernard seducing his way to the top in Primary 5 (ok, maybe that is not ENTIRELY true, but we did suspect that he was seeded for his head-prefect shit).

We joked and we taunted each other like old times; key pillars on which we built our friendship upon. Perhaps this was the essence of male-bonding, a stark contrast to the superficial "you go, girl" in so many female friendships. Our verbal exchanges these days matured with us, as the use of more sophisticated linguistic tools like sarcasm and innuendo were deceptively buried in our words; compared to the blatant name-calling we used to dabble in during our younger days. To date, an estimated 3-million taunts have probably been exchanged between the few of us, half of which probably came from me alone. But I knew that it didn't matter, these guys probably wouldn't take ANYTHING I said to heart, after all, these are the people who have seen the Dark Metamorphisis of my Soul, and can probably see beyond all that shit into the core of the person they've always known me to be.

"I really wonder why we used to give in to you during primary school, why did we always let you have the best?" Bernard challenged.

"Probably cause I've always had a stronger opinion than any of you," I replied cockily.

"I think its because we just thought 'fuck it,' no point arguing with you, since either way, you would insist until you got your way." Jason added, with Zhiwei nodding resounding in support of the rebuttal. Yes, perhaps that was and still is true today, but it probably didn't matter even if I was really the worst person in the world, these guys would probably be the last to rain their judgement down upon me, and laugh it off in semi-expectancy.

Perhaps this is the essence of true friendship, a timeless connection that doesn't require periodic maintenance; yet for the rare occasions when the moon turns blue and a meet-up is in order, you feel like no time was ever lost between any of you. They have been friends for most of my lifetime; and I have a feeling that they'll be friends for the rest of my life as well.


As the lights dimmed and we made our way out of the glass door, I thought about us; where we all began and where we were all going. It's funny how we all started at the same starting point, yet now, we are all heading in drastically different directions.

Bernard has continued down the path of academic achievement, going on to become a bloody scholar to top Imperial and leading the cosmopolitan life in Tokyo. Jason has chosen to dedicate most of his life in pursuing a passion, a sport which defines and fuels him. Zhiwei has chosen to take the familial path with the goal of becoming a family man in the next couple of years. And Roder (sorely absent from this meeting) has chosen to put career as a priority and concentrate on scaling the heights of the corporate ladder.

Me? A chose a different path, the path of pursuing a passion and realizing a childhood dream. Perhaps I am the only one that has refused to grow up all this time, perhaps I am the only one that is still chasing ideals while the rest have learned to settle in with reality instead. Still, if we all started out as blank canvases, then I couldn't help but wonder that perhaps I could be one of them today, anyone of them; if the Art of Life had so painted me out to be that way. To each his own indeed, yet regardless of how different our individual roads took and will take us, I am certain that we would always find a way, a place and a time for our lives to converge.

Here's to 19... going on 20.

Never have the Heroes of Light looked so Dicky