Old Pictures

You ever wonder why old pictures, or pictures for that matter, are important to you?

It's because people are forgetful creatures. Memories, the children born of the wedlock between events in our lives and our emotional reactions to them, eventually fade. Every once in a while, we will need solid, concrete pictorial proof of the past to recall things.

And, in a way, old friends are like old pictures.

Today I had dinner with an old friend. It didn't matter that the last time we actually sat and talked properly was more than a year ago. Conversation came easily, all embargoes between our channels of understanding lifted by the mutual trust we shared.

When I walked out of the restaurant, I had a spring in my step that wasn't there before. I felt like me, again.

Perhaps it had to do with the laughs we shared. It's always a joy to laugh unreservedly around people you know you can trust, knowing that you could do the silliest things and not be judged.

Perhaps it had to do with her kindly saying that I hadn't really changed much, that I might have weathered storms but fundamentally I was the same. I was touched that she remembered me that way, and that I was still the same person to her.

So thank you, for dinner today. It's great to know you are getting on so well, and that you've a most promising future ahead. Thank you too, in a way, for helping me remember the happy, carefree me I was a year ago, and for helping make me feel accepted.

Not all bits of the past are unpleasant ones, I guess.