When the past goes out for dinner

I had dinner last night with previous co-workers of mine, some of whom still work together. It sounded like a good idea - getting the gang all together for a mini reunion and a chance to reconnect with everyone.

It was wierd.

Don't get me wrong, I was excited to see all these friends again and I'm very glad I went and had the chance to keep in touch with everyone. However, I'd just spent the weekend schmoozing and had very little small talk left in me. I was nearly fresh out of fresh quips and my attempts to keep the conversations bouyant were rather weak. I left slightly smaller at the end of the evening.

But, after a night of sleep and, apparently, my poor company notwithstanding, I now recall that we lingered over the colourful assortments of raw fish a lot longer than I thought possible and left far before the silences of staled story-telling began. There were no strangled pauses, no hiccups over a spouse's name nor any random speculations about the local sports teams. We all asked, answered and interjected our fair share of verbiage and took turns guessing whether it was salmon or tuna hiding under the hot sauce on the spicy roll platter. The six of us managed to spend the better part of an evening catching up and getting on as though we had never stopped seeing each other five days a week. We learned all about everyones' summer vacations (some better than others) and were regaled with stories of the various children/grandchildren/neices and nephews interspersed with brief commisserations about careers past and present. I guess that's why we all bothered to get together in the first place: even though it had been over a year since some of us had seen each other, we still simply know each other and are confident in that comfort.

It was good.