Reunion

Every year our IE batch would always have a reunion. This is for the benefit of those who worked outside Davao and the country and who could only go home during the Christmas holidays. Our batch has always been very close and the cliques formed during college still endured till now. Our reunion had never been a competition of achievements; it has always been a sincere bonding of friends. Last Dec 30, we again met up and had a Videoke session. I always have this mixed feeling during our reunion. I feel happy to see those old faces and catch up with their lives. At the same time I feel a bit sad. Sad coz of our futile attempt to recapture the past. We all agree that college was more carefree than our lives today. We would all strip the forced on us by the big bad world. The San Miguel Sales Manager would again be “Talong”. The Logistics supervisor would again be our local Usher. Men would again be boys. Ladies would again giggle like school girls.  I for instance would then be again the childish one. The guys in the group would always treat me as their lil’ sister and would relentlessly tease me. It seems that we were given a few hours to play the role we used to portray in the past. We would recount our misadventures and laughed again like it happened yesterday. This is what usually happens during our reunions… reminiscing the good 'ol times. I secretly think this is all pretentious and disheartening. Remembrances even of joyful moments make me melancholic.  And I always have a hard time battling nostalgia, sentimental fool that I am. Coz we can never bring back the past. It is like keeping a favorite perfume and not using it but smelling it every now and then only to realize several years later that the fragrance has gone stale. The scent has long been gone. Only the memory of the scent remains.