Make New Friends

As we all know, life gets busy and schedules get hectic. It's hard to keep in touch with old friends, even when you may live only an hour from each other. The past few weeks I've been fortunate enough to reconnect with some old friends.

First my old work buddy RC had a bbq. He lives down in Sunnyvale or Santa Clara - don't really remember and the two are pretty close together so it doesn't really matter. RC and I worked on a project from hell together a few years ago. Along with TM and GR we barely managed to stay sane dealing with the idiots we were forced to work with. We were in work areas with 6 desks in an aisle - 3 on either side. RC was in the front one and I was in the rear one with no one between us. I'm pretty sure we drove the folks on the other side of the aisle crazy. 3/4 of the conversations we were having couldn't be verbalized so we resorted to Instant Messenger. We'd be having one conversation aloud and IMing a completely different one. Or there would be silence with everyone working and all of a sudden one of us would break out in laughter due to IM. We were prety good about keeping each other in check. Well, maybe more me keeping RC in check than the other way around. ;-) Anyway, the core group of the four of us was the only reason we made it out of that project alive. RC and TM have since left our company. For some unknown reason GR and I have hung on. I get to hang out with TM quite frequently, but it's hard to hang out with RC and GR since they live down south.

That's why I was pretty excited RC was having a bbq. I got to catch up with both RC and GR. I also managed to lose $40 in poker, but those are the breaks. TM was a little bitch and decided to be out of town that weekend. It was really great to see those two guys and hang out again with the old gang. I miss the ability to do that on a frequent basis.

Later that week I received an email from JM. JM and I went to Marquette together. He was a year ahead of me. We were both Computer Science majors, neither of us fit the stereotype of our major, we were RAs together, he stocked my fridge for me since I was underage that year, we drank together, etc. He and his wife moved to Seattle a couple years ago. Turns out the week he contacted me was his last week with Deloitte Consulting and he was in SF. We got together one night at the Irish Bank for drinks and dinner. It was fantastic to hang out with him again and catch up on each other's lives. He's going back to grad school now in Chicago.

Though it's great meeting new folks, there's something about being able to just completely be yourself without having to give history. Being with folks who know you, know your strengths and your weaknesses and just accept you for who you are they way you accept them. Being with someone with whom you have history. I guess the sign of a true friendship to me was one where even though you haven't seen or spoken to someone in ages, when you do, it's like you saw each other yesterday. You just instantly fall into your old routine and no time has passed.

It reminds me of the old song:

Make new friends,
But keep the old.
One is silver
And the other gold.

This girl scout moment has been brought to you by the letters R and J and the number 10.