My Long Lost Friends!

Last November one of my old (not in age) school friends contacted me on Facebook, asked me for my mobile number, if I had WhatsApp & told me to expect to be added to a group called IC. IC (International College) for those of you who don't know is the school where I spent the best 15 years of my life & from which I graduated back in 1991. To be totally honest I first experienced dread instead of the joy I should have felt for joining all those long lost friends whom I haven't talked to for more than 23 years!! Why was I dreadful and not very excited? Well coz that group I was about to join was composed of my classmates from Kindergarten to Grade 8 which I flunked and had to repeat alone away from those friends who continued on the right track & graduated one year before me! For a few seconds I was afraid of being the third wheel or a stranger among them but how far from the truth that was!!!

The moment I accepted to join that group, which first was called IC class of 1990 then changed for my sake to IC Best Friends, my world changed. It was like our paths never parted and as if we just took a small vacation from which we returned to catch up and tell each other what happened during the past few days when in fact we had decades to account for. Some of my friends might have changed a bit physically (well the men more than the ladies who miraculously seemed to have found the fountain of eternal youth) but underneath the few extra pounds, the thin hair, the few wrinkles and the maturity were the same little faces of the friends with whom I used to play & hang out with from Kindergarten to middle school!!!

The days that followed the day we first joined the group were filled with catching up & filling in the gaps of those many years that separated us! We were now doctors, surgeons, teachers, lawyers, consultants, managers, stay home moms, designers, stylists, scattered all around the world with different time zones but this did not stop us from forming a tight group that took up most of our time. Our better halves, partners, children & all the people around us noticed the change (which they didn't fully approve of) as they watched us at all odd hours with the phone in our hands typing frantically, laughing out loud hysterically, carrying the phone everywhere, texting while working, driving, eating, watching TV, doing homework with the kids, going to the bathroom... The situation got a bit out of hand so we had to lay some ground rules to prevent car accidents, divorces, injuries, work termination, kids delinquency and any other hazards that would eventually erupt from that new addiction that swept our lives.

But we have to admit that we were having a blast even though thousands upon thousands of messages were exchanged everyday to the extend that some members of the group could not keep up as they obviously had other things to do! But we didn't let that discourage us and we came up a genius solution: I started writing a debrief everyday summarizing the news & all what had happened the previous day. I even created another group just for the debriefs to make it easier for the group members to read them without getting lost among the thousands messages exchanged everyday. We didn't stop there we even scheduled multiple reunions in Lebanon in December to accommodate the schedule of all members. And those who couldn't attend one reunion physically could still attend through the group, the pictures shared, Skype...

I for one was lucky enough to be able to attend one of those reunions which took place on December 27th, the same day the explosion happened in downtown. We were all pretty shaken by what happened but we didn't let that stop us as we were too excited to see each other again to miss it at the last minute or postpone it. We only changed the venue from Downtown to Verdun & met in Casper Gambini! It was there & then after more than 23 years that I was reunited with some of my long lost friends and it was as wonderful as I was expecting it to be & then some more!!!!!

My Long Lost Friends I have no words to express how FXXXXXX great it is to have you all back in my life and how valuable, en lighting, refreshing, supportive, and indispensable you all became.

True friendship isn't about being inseparable, it's being separated and nothing changes.