Since Graduating

Life’s never dull when you know learn how to observe.

It’s been almost ten years since I left high school.

Thanks to the power of mobile phones, emails and Facebook, the people of our time no longer need to wait to that annual coffee shop alumni gathering before we know how our old friends are doing in life. Back then, you had a once (or twice) in a year chance to talk to them and see how they have moved on in life.

Some people treat it like a competitive sport. They want to know where they stand among the rest of their peers. Whether their lagging behind or far ahead of the pack. As if it was some sort of ‘social race’ to see who is the most successful.

I remember much more innocent days, when everyone was equal.

Everyone left school at the same level playing field. We attended the same stupid morning assemblies, we faced the same crazy teachers and we all ate the same crappy canteen food. Nobody wore make up, nobody had fancy hairstyles… You COULD wear any shoe you liked as long as it was made of canvas and it was white in colour. We all wore ugly green pants and white shirts, blue pinafores with ponytails or baju kurung with white tudung. Did I say equal? I mean identical.

A quick check a.k.a. stalk on Facebook of how my high school friends reveal just how different things are today. Some are single, many are dating, a few are married (perhaps with kids even)….don’t know if anyone is divorced. But we’ve all become different things; accountants, engineers, managers, business owners, tax collectors (gasp!), government officers, bankers, teachers, navy officers……… the list just goes on and on.

Very frankly, I have not kept in touch with many of these friends. I can count with two hands the number of friends I continue to be in regular contact with. The closest I ever got to rekindling any sort of friendship with the vast majority was by adding them on Facebook. I can’t even say I recognize everyone I added. Compared to what I remember from 10 years ago, some have grown fatter, some of grown hotter, not many have grown any taller, though all of us have grown older.

I remember walking around the school block in the last days of school finishing off our SPM papers. There was this point when I was walking home. I stopped, turned around and looked at my school and the rest of the kids walking home; and I remember noting to myself – this will be the last time in my life I will be doing this. With the song Graduation by Vitamin C playing in my head, I went home and changed out of that white shirt and green pants and canvas shoes. I never wore them again. For my friends and I, so ended a chapter in our lives.

Fast forward to today, I imagine many of us have advance through a few more stages in life. The time in between then and now has meant that they have changed, and so have I. I can no longer say I know these old friends anymore. To meet up again would not be the simple case of picking up right where we left off. Like a tree growing bigger and taller with time, we are now more than what we used to be many seasons ago.

Unless one of us decides to pick up the phone and call one another, I doubt many of our paths will cross again.

But it might still happen.

Who knows right?

So if we get the big jobs
And we make the big money
When we look back now
Will our jokes still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule
Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Will Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
And this is how it feels


Graduation (Friends Forever) - Vitamin C