An Old Friend

An old friend D rang me up last week. (pardon the Singlish below)

D: Hello, do you know who is this?

Me: I know! You are D!! How are you? How nice of you to call me :)

D: How do you know its me? (he called me using his home number)

Me: Becos the number is somewhat familiar and I can recognise your voice mah....

D: Hey, let's catch up! Are you free for lunch tomorrow?

Me: Wah... you so free to come down have lunch with me?

D: Cos its school holidays now so I'm trying to catch up with old friends like you...

It was really nice of D to ask me out to catch up. The last time we contacted each other and met up was more than 6 months ago. Even then, he was the one who asked me out to catch up. I knew D in my varsity years. A bunch of us used to study together in the library even though we are all from various faculties. I also used to like D but we never grew past the stage of good friends and besides, it was probably a one-sided affair. After varsity, we seldom keep in touch since all of us are busy in our own ways.

It was nice to have lunch with him and to catch up on each other's lives. I was encouraged to know an old friend is still walking faithfully with God. It was encouraging because I do know of people who had fallen away although they may be active in christian fellowship in varsity. Anyway I know I surely don't feel anything romantic for this old friend of mine already (even though he is now single and available). Things are just different and we both have moved on in our lives.

It was also nice to be chatting with an old friend about friends we know, a bit about the past and our present and what our future plans are. Its just a nice feeling to be talking to an old friend. YET other times, it is also nice to be talking non-stop about anything and everything to someone you may not know for a long time. But over a short time, both of you can know so much about each other, know the personality of each other, know what the other person is thinking and his/her intentions and being able to communicate on the same frequency despite different backgrounds in family, upbringing, education. It is the same nice feeling of talking to an old friend - the familiarity, the comfort, the trust in that person... such friends are hard to come by isn't it?

Anyway, this reminds me of another Joi Chua's song titled "An Old Friend" in chinese :P Again, its another chinese song and below is my raw translation of it :)

Time flies and you have surely changed
You no longer smoke nor enjoy music

Since that day until now
We have not seen each other
Occasionally I would think of
The details of our past encounters

We are chatting like old friends
Exchanging the little details of our lives
So this is the role of an old friend
Because of our past experiences
I don't feel old whilst talking to you

There is more than a little feeling of loneliness in me
But I don't want to let you know
So I hide that from you
So that I won't divulge too much of my feelings

We are chatting like old friends
Exchanging the little details of our lives
So this is the role of an old friend
Chatting non-stop
Hiding our awkardness
Then you say "Why not we take a photo as a momento?"
(Then you say "We should catch up again another day")

I think its time I take the initiative to contact some of my old friends....