On Pause and Play Friends, and Changes
Writing Challenge Day Nine. Day Thirty suddenly doesn’t seem so unrealistic.
I went to get my visa in Geneva today. One step closer to Japan. How thrilling! I found a lovely café in Geneva to study in and spent the morning and afternoon in a surprisingly productive studying session. I am always pleasantly blown away by how consistently I can study when I head out to a café somewhere. I got to the point where finishing up, I was in that satisfying state of fatigue where you overloaded your brain just the right amount without overexerting yourself.
Then, I headed over to meet up with a close friend that I hadn’t seen in nearly a year. I consider this person to be among my “Pause and Play Friends”, a term I have caught flying through social media recently and instantly adopted it into my vocabulary. It describes the friends that, no matter how much time has passed since you have last seen each other, you will pick up right where you left off. A small catch-up session is always warranted to get each other up to speed, but besides those changes it’s business as usual. It truly does feel like no time has passed, and suddenly the time you spent together passes in no time at all.
The more time passes and the months and years go by—mind you, not all that many quite yet—I have come to increasingly treasure the pause and play friends that I have. As my peers and classmates grow and change as people, naturally the relationships that we share change as well. That isn’t a bad thing. Everyone changes no matter what happens. And some people you stay connected with as you grow and change. Others, you grow and change with them. A lot, if not all of the people that I’m close to have developed and evolved and grown. I’ve changed as well. Some people you no longer see eye to eye. Some classmates you suddenly get along with like a house on fire.
And of course, the friends who stay, and the pause and play friends. As we grow older and spread all across the globe, there are inevitably friends whom I am only able to catch up with once a year, if even that. This past year I’ve been fortunate enough to reconnect with a lot of old friends from school. It has been a joy and a pleasure catching up and seeing how everyone has changed and ‘grown up’. Everyone is treading their own path, and it feels almost alien and surreal to think that we shared a classroom together at some point. Saw each other regularly. Got up to no good. Between the people I see every so often and those I see regularly, it’s great to have pause and play friends. You can pick up where you left off, no questions asked, and it feels natural. Like nothing’s changed at all.
As I’ve been slowly working my way through my old belongings, I stumbled upon a letter that I got for my birthday in high school. It was a touching letter, written in painstaking calligraphy. From a person I hadn’t talked to in years and years and years. In fact, we fell out of touch just a year or so after the letter was written. But the letter stayed. I had completely forgotten that it existed, and that we were so close. It made me think about the little pieces of ourselves that we share with others, and that others keep. To themselves, in a small corner of themselves, or tucked away in a box somewhere. Waiting to be found, to reignite all of the memories and the recollections of the times spent together.
We sat in a café and just talked, and what felt like just an hour or so had suddenly turned into six, and we were suddenly catching a late train home, heading to sleep. It felt like the good old days had seeped into the best parts of growing up. It’s strange to think that there are even “good old days”, but it’s great to have times to reminisce on. And many more good memories to make for the next time we catch up, and hit Play.
