Throwing away my past

I don’t have many friends in my life.

I have no idea where my high school friends are now, I don’t have contacts with classmates in college, and emails with acquaintances in graduate school are declining lately.  A friend says I keep “throwing away my past.”

Sounds pathetic?

But I feel really good about this.  Every once in a while, I’ll look through my MSN list. If I cannot remember who he or she is after staring at their email address for ten seconds, I’ll block or delete them.  I just don’t like a long, long list with a large number of people I barely know.

Every time entering a new phase of my life, I meet more people with similar or specific interests. With new and better friendships at hand, those childhood memories seem to be trivial, to say the least. When lives of two people become a parallel structure, where there is no more chemistry within the friendship, conversations are boring.  Meeting with old friends in high school or in college, topics are always in search of lost time, or remembrance of things past.  People pretend to be interested in each other’s careers or jobs, but they’ll have to start all over again in the next meeting. 

I leave early in this kind of parties every time. I feel bored during repetitions and exchanging shallow greetings. It’s like a never-ending story. The worst thing is, it really never ends.

During the past year, however, the situation started to change.

I met some people who really have very similar preferences. We share similar principles and interests. They have some characteristics that I will always look up to. They have wonderful jobs, not necessarily in monetary terms, but intelligent and truly helpful to the world and others. These people are opinionated, and they stick to their beliefs.  These friends spread around the world. I know we won’t be able to meet every often, but we will get along with at anytime.

This time, I don’t want to leave. I want to stay with all friends I met in the past year as long as possible.