After all these years* - Jim Brickman with Anne Cochran

One of the highlights of my recent was to meet up with Michael again.

I had wondered how it would be. The last we met was in a country where both of us were visiting. We were both single. This time round, we would be both engaged to be married to our respective partners later this year. Would things still be the same? We weren't the young carefree students we were back then.

But there was nothing to worry about. Our reunion was exactly how it has always been! Things were still the same. Although we both weren't the same anymore (especially our waistlines!!!!), the frenship was still the same. Perhaps, stronger after all these years.

As we reflected on how we first met - telling his fiancee about it - i realised it has been more than 5 years since that fateful nite when we introduced ourselves in the kitchen of flat 11 at the Rayleigh Tower.

We were part of the 'midnight' group!!! You see, having 13 occupants in one flat with just a single kitchen meant that we all had naturally started having different meal times. So there we were, 2 guys studying different subjects from different parts of the world, shaking hands in the kitchen late at night. Did we know how things were gonna work out for us?

Michael can be considered to be my best fren during my post-grad studies. We started off eating together but we progressed on to watching movies and TV shows together and sharing our lives. I found that it was easy to open up to him and to share things which i would not have with my frens here in M'sia. We even stayed together in one room at point of time when i had finished and was looking for a job. He would have been my best man if it was practicably possible. But he's getting married just before i am.

Meeting up with him was good. We spent so much time just catching up - it was as if we were never apart all these years. We din need time to "warm up" - we hit the ground running, as if knowing that our time together was limited so we better not waste any.

It was good.

The next time we see each other, we would both be married then. But i'm confident that the change in our marital status will not make a change in our frenship. Cuz he is a true fren.

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart
~Katherine Mansfield~

p/s - all these photos in this posts were taken by Michael's fiancee during my visit to UoE.

*This song went into the top 10 of the American Adult Contemporary chart in 1998