Long weekend with R

We had a long Easter weekend last week. Coming back from a gorgeous holiday onto a short work week is the stuff of dreams! To top it I had my room-mate from graduation, R visiting me. She is on a work trip to UK. Though she is posted real far from where we live, she took the effort to come and visit us. We met each other after 15 years! And it was just something. I do not live in the past, I do not attach a lot of importance to nostalgia. But spending close to 4 formative years interacting with a set of people can form some bonds. In all honesty we were not that close during our student years. After finishing graduation, life and work took us on different paths. Except keeping tab on each other’s developments via social media and the one off birthday messages on WhatsApp, our interaction was few and far between. But ever since she came to the UK we had been talking. And the 2 days spent with her did renew a lot of bonds. It was great revisiting common memories, talking about common people, discussing common places, retelling common experiences. It was good to realise there is a lot in common between the two of us. She went off to visit another friend of hers in a nearby town, so I missed on spending all the 4 days with her. Which I now wish I had.

We live more or less in isolation. The 4 of us form a close knit unit. The reason we try to frequent the visit of grandparents is so that the children form more connections. Also grandparents can stay longer thus strengthening those connections. In this any additional human interaction, especially with people we have known before is really heartening and what we long for. It was amazing to see the kids interact so well with R. She has two daughters too, so she was reliving her life. Chiyaa could not have enough of aunty and kept talking to her. One morning in fact she went and lay in her bed, messing with her phone and talking random stuff. When R went to her friend’s place, Chiyaa kept enquiring when she would be back. When I said she would be back the Monday morning, and she wasn’t, Chiyaa was visibly upset. But then kids being kids, recover fast too. Pumpki is the quiet one, but she would drag aunty and make her sit and do puzzles. They had no stranger anxiety or inhibition in being with her. Which was great. I hope we get more chances to catch up!

We made a day trip with her to the beach. It was really fun spending  a day with her. The entire duration was amazing. We just reconnected and went talking about anything and everything. Work, in-laws, family, kids, career, India, UK, finance – you name it! The 3 nights she stayed with me, it was wonderful to talk to her late into the night. She is not a late sleeper, so I must say she did real well staying up J When she went back, both she and I were left with lots of emotions. She said she was going back with a lot of memories and I hope they were all good ones J