Anyway, I recently finished this one called Friends Like These by Danny Wallace. It's about this guy on the verge of turning 30 who decides to track down and reunite with friends from his childhood. It doesn't sound all that ground breaking, but something in it really connected with me. Like Wallace, I know what it's like to be fiercely nostalgic about my childhood. I miss it. If you've read my blogs before, you'll notice how stupid things from my childhood will amaze and excite me. I miss my childhood and feel reluctant to leave it behind. I would much rather watch cartoons in my pyjamas and eat froot loops for breakfast than push through the morning commute in a corporate suit.
In our technologically advanced world, I've found it so easy to relive those magic moments and watch childhood cartoon theme songs on YouTube, search for childhood toys on eBay, and search for old friends on Facebook. But perhaps there is something that makes you miss your childhood when one is at that point where we are supposed to be leaving our childhood and carefree days behind and step into the world of adulthood and "settling down in life" (ooh how I hate that phrase). You start wondering if this is a normal phase of life and how you compare with others you went to school with, as if they are the benchmark to measure yourself against. As if we can define our success with the money we earn, the number of children we have, and the people we end up being with.
A few years ago with the magic of Facebook I posted my first grade picture and for a month, connected with more than a quarter of those in my class. It was so weird. Familiar faces of kids whose lives crossed with mine for a year by coincidence and chance. I went to an international school in Hong Kong so the children were mostly those of diplomats and expats across the world who eventually returned to their own countries. I feel like I could've written my own book like Danny Wallace. I have yet to actually meet one in person but I'd think it's a bit weird. Like meeting a pen pal you once wrote to decades ago.
It's so bizarre to think that as I grew up, so did those boys and girls. In fact, many of them actually have successful and interesting lives. Much more interesting than mine.
That's me front row, far right. Always the shortest in the class and forever destined to sit at the left or right corner of the front row in all my class pictures until graduation. Do you still keep in touch with your old classmates? Where are they now?
