Missing that connection

A couple of weeks ago, amidst dollops of fresh udon and mouthfuls of chirashi don at a fine dining Japanese restaurant in town (maybe not so fine dining, but the prices pretend to be), a dear old friend, R, and I concluded that we miss the good old secondary school and junior college days. Of what, we could not initially put our fingers on. Finally, dear lovely R hit the nail on the head: "I miss that connection."

Still happily dipping said chirashi in large saucer filled to the brim to almost overflowing with soya sauce and a huge lump of wasabi, I was partly listening to the conversation and partly to the hunger pangs that could not cease embarrassing me. "Huh?", as I furiously dipped my salmon, overturned it and drenched it further in yet more wasabi. This place serves some terrific sashimi; I'm convinced they are air-flown from Japan.

"I miss that connection. You know, when we were younger and could so easily connect with another."

R got me there. Indeed: it was not too long ago when we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. When things were simple, people were simple - when they smile, they are smiling (that sounds superfluous but really, if you meet an everyday shark like I do, it's not), when you could confide in your next-door neighbour at Physics lab and you know he or she will not tell it all, will not judge you, and will be your friend (as Oxford dictionary defines it, not the society as it does now).

I miss that connection, too.

Lunch today reaffirmed that loss. Seated across each other in a tiny pseudo food court filled with loud, incessant chatter and a cacophony of noises (some gossip, mostly complaints) across the various tightly intertwined 45cm x 60cm tables (alright, I am no mathematician but you get the point), the claustrophic environment does nothing to hide the lack of conversation and the pathetic effort at making any. Let's just eat and get back to the office - you could almost hear the hushed grunts of our hearts as we stared deeply into our chicken rice and fish noodles soup, wishing they would hurry up and disappear into our tummies so we could just return and finish our work and leave the d*mned office for the day. Collegiality. Colleagues. Alliteration could never bring the two any closer, could it?

I miss that connection, so much.

claire.