Hi man, How Have You Been For The Past Seven Years?
Today I passed him in the street again. He had his hair slicked back, a leather jacket on, and he was with a girl. I stared at him that little bit too long, and when he noticed me I could tell that he recognised me. Something clicked in his brain that said, ‘Oh, Alaine. From Primary School. Should I say something?’ And before he can make up his mind, he’s gone again.
We’ve both been playing this very strange game of chicken for the past year and a half, since I got to RMIT. The game of ‘ Who will say hi first?’ and I just know that even though I know him, I know his face, his dorkish smile, his love of Star Wars, that that kid is long gone, and the answer to ‘How have you been?’ will give me answers I could never have seen coming. We live a street apart from each other and always have, and yet every time I see him I feel like we’re miles apart because we never spoke in those formative years. We never knew each other when we went through all of those hardships. And now we may never know each other, because the gap of ‘how have you been?’ is ever widening to ‘how have you been for the past seven years?’. And soon, it’ll be eight.
We may have only known each other vaguely in Primary School. Him being the best friend of my best friend’s brother, who then dated that best friend for a week, all in grade six. I still have fond memories of him, of talking to him and my friend and her brother, of the adventures we used to have when we were kids up at her farm. And I wonder if the fond idea I have of him that makes me want to say hi, say hi to this now man I really do not know at all but only by face value, is really only of that time. Of my childhood and the things I used to do. The crazy things I did when I used to feel free and unburdened by the adult mind. When I was a child.
I’m glad that I miss those times, because it makes me remember that freedom so much richer.