Sometimes you forget that you have been missing things until you’re enjoying them again. This weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of having Daniel visit me in Red Deer for the weekend. After a crazy lack of proper directions and almost no arrangements of when, where and how to meet each other, he made it into the front doors of the college late Friday evening to meet me while I lounged, waiting in flip flops on the window sill of the main hallway, catching the strange looks of those passing by.
For so long I had been looking forward for this wonderful chance to spend time together and hang out again, yet when it actually came, I hardly noticed it was unusual to have Daniel around. The good memories of the past seem to lapse into familiarity in moments, no matter how long you have gone without them. We spent our time catching up over cups of tea, wonderful food, chopstick walrus teeth and far-too-late bed times with make-shift sleeping arrangements. I was only glad for my health’s sake that we don’t get to hang out all the time, or these dark lines under my eyes would soon become permanent residents of my face.
Thankfully we managed to do everything that we had planned for the short weekend, including a children’s story book about Mr. Poo, a character Daniel created back in high school, and a picture of us painted with mud, baring our arms and teeth as we stood shirtless and shoeless in the snow. For some reason the idea of being barefoot in the snow didn’t actually seem that terrible to me. I had this strange idea that it would be almost too cold to feel properly, or that it would take a minute or two for my feet to actually realize what was going on. Unfortunately, feet have a very apt sense of temperature, and after a couple quick pictures we slipped our snow covered toes back into our shoes and ran shivering back to the residence buildings.
Time went so quickly, it seems like a dream now that I think of it. Daniel is back to Saskatchewan, and my college life resumes with a blasé normality. And yet, we had a wonderful time – reminding ourselves of past antics in boarding and the all the crazy things we did during our time in Pakistan. I forgot just how much we packed into those few years. It wasn’t until we were explaining it to a friend, who generously hosted us for Saturday evening and all of Sunday, that I realized just how insane our ‘exploits’ sounded to a outside listener. Flaming arrows, fish cremations, riots in dorm halls, evading bedtimes and burning snow-witches. They were good memories. They still are, and with old friends around, these old memories are exchanged, cherished and brought back to life again.