Friends Reconstituted

Last updated: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:01:00 GMT

Hey-ho, whaddya know?

No word from Sara, but by some sort of amazing coincidence ("Sick on a work day, what are the chances of that? A million to one!") I got an email from Ann.

Her and her husband are organising some sort of sponsored trek to China, to buy keyboards for deaf lepers, and they need money! Not only is it a bloody begging letter, it's also a circular. Well, heck, don't I feel special?

She was smart enough to Bcc it to everyone, though, so no chance of anonymously hassling her friends. That's my girl. Shame; I'd have enjoyed sending lewd remarks to her sister. Heh.

Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for everyone else, I'm rarely nasty to people I don't really know. And I don't really know Ann any more.

It's funny, though, how we assured each other that last time we spoke that we shouldn't become strangers. I'm losing count of the number of people I've said that to, or who have said that to me. It gets to the point that you know as soon as someone says it that it will become true.

"Don't be a stranger."

"Who are you, again?"

I remember well the first time this struck me -- in a bar in town, drinking with the guy I'd shared an office with for the last three years. I'd spent my last day at work, I was out with the boys for the evening. The next day I was expecting friends from all over the country for a leaving party; I was emigrating to Finland the next week. Me and this guy went on drinking long after the others had faded, and had a rollocking good time. We lamented that I was leaving, and how hard it was for us to find friends who could deal with our geekiness, and our seemingly bistable characters. We promised we wouldn't become strangers. Four days later I was on a plane to Helsinki.

Well, we all know what happened next.

Three months later, I landed another job in the same department; I was back. I was in a new office but I was no more than two minutes' from this guy's door. We've been out for a drink once since then. Three years, one drink.

The older I get, and the more often this happens, the more I realise that this is just the nature of life, and that while we do move on, and it is sad, it's hardly the end of the world. It doesn't really reflect any failing on the part either party, just the evolution of our characters.

I can see a lot of the Ann I remember in the message she sent me. There's obviously some immutable core that is her. This need to do good for others, for instance. And it's very tempting for me to think that she really hasn't changed at all. But I know that I have changed, so I must assume that she has. I've been wondering lately whether other people see their lives as linear. I wonder whether they can look back from where they are, and see where they came from. Perhaps they can see the trail of crumbs they left on the way?

But I can't see my way back from here to there. Life, it seems to me, is punctuated by sudden, violent lurches in direction. Sure, I'm going mostly forward, over time, but there are rapid changes in velocity.

I wonder how Ann has changed? I would truly be interested to know, but I think we'd probably both be disappointed. I think she'll still be beautiful, and with just enough flaws to make her vulnerable, and thus more desirable. It always struck me that she felt she was in her sister's shadow. Not so. Her sister was older, and undeniably beautiful. But Ann was more so. I think she'll still be smart -- she is a doctor, no less. But I think that, deep down, she'll still be just too Good, too Righteous, too Christian.

No edge.

I think that, in return, she'll find that that flare of anger that drove and consumed me back then, that self-destructive urge that probably made me more desirable than I am, has died. Back then I was convinced I'd never see 25, and I was happy to squeeze everything I could out of the next few years and leave it at that. Now I'm happy to think that I'll live to 70, and I look forward to my future, and that of my family. But I'm not going out of my way to do anyone else any favours on the way. Raising one fist and screaming "fuck the world" is so much more attractive than raising one finger and shouting "fuck everyone but me."

So, in the space of 12 years, and in an absence of all but the most superficial contact, we have become strangers. Once we were close, it seemed. Now, well, we probably couldn't be more different. I certainly don't think we'd choose to be friends. But, for the sake of a friendship long passed, I'll probably silently bin the email she sent me, rather than telling her not to bother emailing me again. It'd be like kicking a puppy.

If she craps on my carpet, I'll kick her then.

I found myself lying awake at 0230 the other night, pondering this little string of meaningless coincidences, and thinking about the turns that life has taken. I didn't get to sleep for some time, and I was shattered the next day at work, but that time spent thinking has proved worthwhile. I think I've finally realised why it is that I've wanted to move to New Zealand for so long:

I want to go home.

I want to go back. I want to walk back over the path that lead me from there to here. I want to go home, back to the hills, but -- and this may be a revelation to no-one but me -- I don't want to turn a corner and find the old me coming the other way.

He and I are strangers now.