Meeting an old friend is quite an enjoyable incident, but not always. What I hate most is when I meet an old friend and realize he's totally changed to someone I don't have any interests in. I don't get disappointed from all of them, but just from a few of them.

In younger days, we vowed to keep the idealogy and spirits up as long as we can. Reality is harsh and difficult. One can't avoid the harsh realities, but can still strive for it. After years of no whereabouts to each other, we get connected again and setup to meet with lots expectations. As soon as I see his face and atmosphere around him, either a bitter disappoint that I wished not meet him again or a real joy of seeing him again sweeps me.

A disappointment comes only when I had expectations. If I regarded him he would turned out that way, there's no disappointments at all. We would be just glad to see old acquaintances, that would keep us connected again. The thing is when I expected him as one of those who would keep his spirits up and maneuver his way throughout the harsh real world. The disappoint makes me speechless without breaking the ice-cold atmosphere what to say to keep up the conversation. There's an urge inside me to talk to him to revive some old memories when we went to school or worked together. I could feel that he changed too much to enjoy the sheer moments from the past.

Sometimes I could talk to him on how our thoughts have changed and evolved since we talked last. He managed to maintain his lifestyle and some independence to cultivate himself all along the way. We fill the each other's gap and regret to break the conversation to go back to where we are belonging and have responsiblities now.

I don't expect him encaged in the past and stay as he used to be. As we grow and get older, we change to adjust to the society's needs. The change is inevitable. But the small part of me stays the same, which can not be described explicitly. Only when I see him or her, I could FEEL it through the atmosphere around him/her.

It's not his financial affluence, his status in his company or his achievements as a professional. It's something which is not covered and painted artificially, which I can share with him from the past and which have continuity in it. When we talk again, we feel we are changed, but we can still talk with the same energy and naivete we had years back.

I want to see him to read books to keep his mind sharp and stimulated, not just to catch up the computer skills to avoid lay offs. I want his kids have same kind of conversations with him, which we used to have. I want him to enjoy what he's doing even though he is regarded as mediocre in it by his colleagues. I want him to listen to Bach or Mozart even 5 minutes a month, remembering back when we searched stores to find a LP of their songs. I want him to remember his idealogy and dreams he said he would make in the future. I don't want him to be embarassed and to say "good old immature days" when I mention what he used to say to me.

And I want him to talk more about the present situations how he's enjoying it. The past is a past. We live in the present and are heading for the future. What we are connected is through the past we share together now. Depends on how we live now, we could be connected again in the future as the present will be the past when the future comes.

Or he will be forgotten as we realized that we came to and live in the totally different worlds. He will live his way without my existence anymore, and I will go my way without reminiscing about him and with new people I will meet along the way. That's why I'm not always enjoying seeing old friends. Occasionally I hesitate to go to class reunions.

I finally managed to write down this subject, which I tried for several years. This morning I met an old friend to have a breakfast together. Probably seven years passed after our last talking. As I was so eagered to talk to him again, I wanted to see him from the early morning to catch up missing years all day long. That did last just over an hour. I understand being layed off and breaking up with fiancee are difficult to manage, but there's still a life to enjoy. He has a number of friends like me eager to see him again. Not only he just shut himself off from the others, his mind and attitudes seemed deteriorated. After an unpleasant breakfast, I didn't feel like to have a chat with him over a coffee and we departed. I strolled the streets for a while to freshen up.

I had a whole Sunday morning and afternoon to kill by myself at hand, which I'd reserved to spend with him. A bookstore was open and I entered to browse magazines and just to run into old classmates. We took classes together and hadn't run into each other for over ten years. We were in early twenties then and are now in mid and late thirties. We started to catch up from the time we took physics classes together, and until that evening excavating how we lived and what we did, to find out we were always in the vicinities of each other. I wished the day should be longer to keep our conversations on.

Today I had two reunions with friends each with different expectations and satisfactions. One thing I'm sure is this world is a fun and exciting place to live. (Oct-5-97)