Tunnelish Memories

Last weekend, I did the unordinary in having lunch-cum-lepak session with some old college mates from my pre-University days.

There were four of us and over individual meals of Nasi Arab (three of which is of the very tender Lamb Kabshah variety) we caught up with each other’s latest in life development.

As is usual when long-time friends meet (I think!), there were also bouts of reminiscence in the “good/bad old days”.

I was really amazed with the recollection my fellow college mates had of the period a good 20 years ago. Such superb memories!

They remembered names, places and incidences right down to the most minor of details.

I am ashamed to say of having to go “Uh Hmm”, “Ah Yes, I remember him/her” and such just to keep pace even as I tracked into my own memory vault for something, anything to trigger any floodgate, however small, of whatever it was they were talking about.

There were, of course, bit and pieces – mostly nuggets in selective memory bank – which I could see with my mind’s eye, but for a good length of time during the (ahem) discourse I was as blank as a whiteboard at a MySpace “What’s our next plan?” meeting.

(Pardon the totally inane and witless metaphor)

It was good to reconnect with old friends, but it made me realized how far removed I am from the previous-life circles, where I stood today.

We come to these junctures on countless occasions, I suppose, and for some, they will not only collect valuable experience and enter life-changing decisions but also lifelong friends (sometimes even life partners).

Kid (Kelantanese guy from Bachok who’s into gym these days and who once sport a Morten (AHA) Harket hairdo) commented – quite exuberantly, in fact – that I had a pretty tunnel-like “radar” aka perception.

How very perceptive, I thought.

This could very well explain why I am so ill equipped when it comes to the glossary of life’s experiences. Either that or I just have a very, very lazy memory-bank workforce whose idea of file retrieval is limited to those file within fingers’ reach.

Is that good, bad or somewhere in between?

I don’t really know, but it does leave you behind during Alumnus and what not.

For what’s it worth though, I’m okay with my ROM, limited as it is.

I sure don’t mind improvements in my RAM, though.

Loved to have a greater level of zippiness to my thoughts...