Re-acquaintance

Great. The blog hung on me. So ohkay, this is my 2nd edition.

I loathe re-meeting people. They exist so much better in my imagination then in my reality.

Have you ever had one of those weeks, when people of your past seem to like to pop up in your life? One after the other, like some bad case of pimple outbreak.

WEll, I'm having on of those Re-acquaintance Week.

I've had my share of those, I can now sense them coming. I would usually be satisfied in the lull of my present life, and adjusting nicely to my new schedules, when I feel a brush on my neck ( ohkay ...not literary) and a strange shimmering in my vision. I know.I'm aware.

Then the people start to roll across my life.

I was at work, happily slogging away, then I was called into the meeting room. Who was I to find but my old classmate who is now worknig for a lighting consultant who is working for the firm that I work for. Weird. We were friends, but not that close, we shared lunches and all, but now, we look across, each uncomfortable in the realisation that we are not as close anymore and that roles have been redefined. Strangely surreal. We pass a few common courtesies and then we walk pass again.

Fast forward to a few days later. I was sitting happily in the air-conditioned of my mother's all purpose all weather vehicle. I look up and I see an Ex-Friend..more appropriately, an Ex-Embitted-Friend.
Oh gosh (oh god, oh allah, oh buddha, oh whatever...). She looks erm. unglam. she was in her usual tee n mini skirt get up, hair of course, unkempt and had packets of takeaways dangling off her wrists while checking out an offer on a japanese buffet restuarant. Guess, it took not being a friend to see her more clearly or rather harshly. My first thoughts were my god, did she see me? and then after being mean to her in my thoughts by seeing her so unglamly, I felt bad, I mean...was it because I'm not her friend anymore? but that aside, something worried me more. What if she saw me???
but nothing has happened so, I'm assuming, we've just passed each other's path again. Rather uneventfully.
But I hate that friendships take on the weird neurotism of relationships, often at the most estranged moments.

Then tonight, I met a mother of an old friend who also used to be my neighbour. Heard she's doing well, finishing her masters in law now, while her sister has gone on to Harvard for her MBAs. Wow. Hello inferiorty complex, buh-bye self esteem. I do wonder though, how she thinks of me when her mother tells her. Ah well. I'm not too bad off, and I'm pretty contented now. Or am I?

Nothing like a good dose of re-acquaintance to shake your faith in yourself.

I guess this is what they talk about when they say young adults have comparison problems.
I'm so guilty of it.

Then again, this is what you get when you stay in a SMALL country.
When there's sun most of the time, and you stay in a tropical country. Undoubtedly, people will pass through like shadows on a hot, humid day from a tree branch, moving across your feet from the incoming sea breeze.