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Strange meetings, small world
I've been in Australia for the past three weeks.
Last night I went to a family dinner.
My brother shows up with a lady named Rita, his new girlfriend.
I recognised her immediately. She was part of a close group of people I knew way back 25 years ago, including my closest school friends. She married one of them. She knew me too of course and we got talking about the old times toward the end of the evening.
I lost touch with those people right after my 10 year school reunion. My future wife arrived in Australia on the same night and attended that function. We settled in a different state and got busy with life.
After that reunion, it was a real fork in the road. I lost touch with everyone except for the occasional chance encounter. It turned into kind of like a clean break and then it became harder and harder to re-establish contact.
I lived in a different city, married, had children and went overseas a lot for years at a time. I never really came back home except to see my parents, never staying long. I'm still overseas now and probably will be away for a few years more.
Rita filled me in on where many of the old gang are now. It was very strange, but good to know my old friends from the formative years are okay. I'm not on Facebook and hard to find because of all the moves.
Most of them still live in the area I grew up. Some made good, a couple of girls from that group, Nikki and Simone, set up a fashion line called Zimmerman, which is well known. I had no idea.
This confirmed something I always suspected - if I retire where I grew up, my old friends will still be around. Someone will probably say, hey horsie, have you been away or something? Apparently some vaguely keep in touch with my movements through my brothers and sisters, who still live in the area.
If I know Rita she will get the word around I'm okay, which is good enough for now. She was always an organiser in the group. She has kept in touch with most people. I'm not good at that. Like a lot of nice parts of the world, to get ahead you have to go away. My life has been busy, always moving.
Rita said there may be a reunion soon. That would be fine.
I couldn't have stuck it out in the hometown for half a century but I could go back one day. That is good to know.
It was good to see Rita. It kind of smooths the way if I want to retire where I grew up, which is pretty cool
Last night I went to a family dinner.
My brother shows up with a lady named Rita, his new girlfriend.
I recognised her immediately. She was part of a close group of people I knew way back 25 years ago, including my closest school friends. She married one of them. She knew me too of course and we got talking about the old times toward the end of the evening.
I lost touch with those people right after my 10 year school reunion. My future wife arrived in Australia on the same night and attended that function. We settled in a different state and got busy with life.
After that reunion, it was a real fork in the road. I lost touch with everyone except for the occasional chance encounter. It turned into kind of like a clean break and then it became harder and harder to re-establish contact.
I lived in a different city, married, had children and went overseas a lot for years at a time. I never really came back home except to see my parents, never staying long. I'm still overseas now and probably will be away for a few years more.
Rita filled me in on where many of the old gang are now. It was very strange, but good to know my old friends from the formative years are okay. I'm not on Facebook and hard to find because of all the moves.
Most of them still live in the area I grew up. Some made good, a couple of girls from that group, Nikki and Simone, set up a fashion line called Zimmerman, which is well known. I had no idea.
This confirmed something I always suspected - if I retire where I grew up, my old friends will still be around. Someone will probably say, hey horsie, have you been away or something? Apparently some vaguely keep in touch with my movements through my brothers and sisters, who still live in the area.
If I know Rita she will get the word around I'm okay, which is good enough for now. She was always an organiser in the group. She has kept in touch with most people. I'm not good at that. Like a lot of nice parts of the world, to get ahead you have to go away. My life has been busy, always moving.
Rita said there may be a reunion soon. That would be fine.
I couldn't have stuck it out in the hometown for half a century but I could go back one day. That is good to know.
It was good to see Rita. It kind of smooths the way if I want to retire where I grew up, which is pretty cool
Both of them were about to graduate from well-regarded universities, with honors, and seem to have had good jobs lined up, one at PwC and another I think at Unilever, but I don't remember for sure. I don't understand what leads people to make such tragic choices. 
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