Some years keep us locked indoors, others are filled with travel. Sometimes we are eager to leap into the unknown future while at other times we rejoice in a blast from the familiar past.
When I ushered in 2024, I had no idea that the first two months would involve trips to India for reunions – once to catch up with college classmates and a second time to connect with family.
We were once young
Ten years ago I made the mistake of missing my college reunion for a variety of practical reasons – I had just moved to Singapore, my life was chaotic, it would be an expensive trip. But when I saw the happy, funny, wacky pictures posted on the college Whatsapp group, I felt a sharp twinge of regret.
Regrets bite. But they also point us in the direction we need to take.
With the dawning maturity of middle age, my classmates decided that we should gather every five years. And in the last decade, I am happy to report that I have been fortunate to attend both reunions.
Luckily for me the chosen days this year happened to coincide with the long weekend for Chinese New Year in Singapore. For two nights and two days, I got a chance to hangout with my classmates at a beautiful resort in Lonavala. I was reuniting with some classmates (whom I first met when we were teenagers) for the first time since we parted ways after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Bombay University.
Stepping into a time warp
Needless to say, so much had transpired for us, individually and collectively, that it felt like we had stepped into a time warp. Once again we could be silly, uninhibited, unconcerned about our serious personas in the real world which included important positions in the corporate world and in social spaces. Some had continued with careers in the pharma industry while others had taken divergent but equally interesting and fulfilling paths. The focus was not on what we did for a living but on how we were living our lives.
Something about old friendships
There is something special about old friendships and the way they mature with time. From initially being academically competitive to trying our best to soar in our careers, juggling work and family demands, many of us treading across continents while trying to stay true to our roots and keeping new connections alive, we all seemed to have crossed over several life stages to come to a phase where our lives were more tranquil.
Of course, we still had our challenges – some worried about elderly parents, some nursed concerns about their adult children and all of us entertained fears about our own health and mortality. Yet, what stood out after a weekend of fun was that we were able to put all of it aside for two days and simply enjoy each others’ company.
We ate vada pav and misal, sang old songs, shared laughs, rekindled memories, reminisced about the highs and lows of college life in the Mumbai of the eighties and shook a leg on the dance floor to Bollywood numbers, shedding inhibitions and the awkwardness that had once plagued us. The endorphins from that one weekend (or memories of it) will last for the rest of the year, if not until the next reunion.
Family reunions
A lot of stuff happens when your parents pass on. Regardless of how old you are when you lose the last surviving parent, you feel like an orphan. Untethered, bereft, alone. I remember feeling a new kind of solidarity with my two brothers when we completed the final rites for our father, more than ten years ago. While we each had our families and our lives, we were united in our grief. We bore the weight of the loss equally. Our parents were no more. But we had each other.
For me, the greatest joy of having siblings is knowing that we are like seeds planted and nurtured in the same plot of land, exposed to equal amounts of sunshine and given adequate nutrition, received the same combination of love and discipline, and interacted with the same relatives, neighbors, friends.
Yet, when I stand besides my brothers now, I marvel at how each of us has turned out in adulthood. I’m awestruck by how different our lives and our life philosophies are but I feel content knowing that when we need each other, we will be there – standing as one, against the elements. Against the world, if needed.
The Power of Regret
In his bestselling book, The Power of Regret – How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, author Daniel Pink organizes human regrets into four categories based on his research. Foundation regrets are related to stability and responsibility, boldness regrets focus on missed opportunities and moral regrets concern ethical choices. However, the fourth and largest category belongs to what he calls “connection regrets”. These are the regrets we feel for neglecting relationships.
Life has a way of catching us off guard, sweeping us into its raging waters. Sometimes, all we can do is to stay afloat. Yet, as the decades pass by, we long to revisit the places we once inhabited, physically and metaphorically.
Connected at the core
During my two reunions I felt like I had momentarily dropped anchor in the fast-flowing river of time. It was a pause and a peek into the past. Not just to wallow in nostalgia, but to stop and acknowledge where we came from – our homes, schools, neighborhoods. In the two weekends I spent with people who mattered (and still matter), I saw myself mirrored in the eyes of the people who hung out with me when we had pimples and bad posture, when we stumbled clumsily over our words and our feet, when we were bundles of pure potential, capable to growing and glowing in every possible direction. It reminded me once again that everything changes yet at the core we are connected.
Reunions can be really fun. They can also be reality checks. I am even more convinced to not miss the next one.
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