Friends Who've Come And Friends Who're Gone

Can you count them?

I haven't kept a count. But I always wonder if the overall total always remains the same.

Friends from school who grow with us for ten so years and then are lost once out of the school. By the time we complete our education and start our career, we forget half of them. Then one fine day, you are abroad and someone calls you out. Least expecting to find a friend there, you will find a long-forgotten classmate and memories are rejunivated.

While you get back some friends, you also make new friends. Each friend falls in a particular group. And only a handful transcend these groups. There are generally very few friends who will know each and everything that's happening with you. They are your pillars to lean on in unhappy times. They are the ones you go to for advice, suggestions, and solace. These friends are constant.

You will find newer friends as you progress in your life...college friends, colleagues, trekking friends, club friends, gym friends. As you pass each day, you will meet each one of these and they perform their task to accompany you till you get someone else. It is just like a train, stopping at a station, picking a few people up, taking them to the next station, and dropping them there. All these friends serve their puropse. And that is all they are for. For that matter, even you serve the same purpose for them in their lives.

And in this journey, some friends, perhaps long lost, leave an indelible mark on you. They have affected your life in some way. Whether it is the way they communicated with you, the way they helped in you your first ever job, the way you were comfortable with them, your togetherness, you cherish it all. You still wish that things had not changed between you two and you were still friends. But that can't happen. Because you have to move along as life moves on. If you don't move on, there's a chance that you won't catch the friends who are waiting for you in the future.

Move on, but don't forget to turn around and glance back once in a while!

Cheers to all my "constant" friends and all my friends perhaps long-forgotten, long-lost, or even long-left!