We are growing up

Friends from childhood remain children for ever in one’s memory. Until one sees a picture of the person, all grown up and minus the baby fat. In the cold storage of memory, they are chubby cheeked or awkwardly lean and tall. They have impossibly curly hair and a shrill loud voice. They wore neatly ironed school uniforms or dirtied and torn play-time clothes.

Then one day you run into one of them on the streets. The hair tamed, the voice broken, dressed in the best, on a diet. And you realise -- time has passed, we have grown up, s/he has changed and so have I.

Back then, you shared every little secret, every object of interest was discussed, every minute of the day was spent together. Now, you look into the other’s eyes and see the reflection of a world you are not familiar with, and you realise the other is seeing the same in your eyes too.

No, I did not recently run into anyone from the past. But I would like to. It’s like a refreshing blast of wind. To catch a glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd, to relate it to the impression of a much younger, much smaller face in the mind’s vault, to see the same light of recognition growing on the other’s face, to shake hands, to say "How are you, lovely to have met you", to exchange contact details, to realise how much you yourself have changed, and walk away with the warmth, with the freshly evoked memory of the security of childhood, with a smile that will linger on till a sigh of nostalgia escapes.