Some Friendships Were Never Really Lost

For years, I had lost touch with almost all of my graduation friends.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I reconnected with one classmate. That one connection led me into a group where around twelve or thirteen of us from our graduation days had come together again.

And suddenly, people who had belonged to a very different chapter of my life started appearing again.

Among them were Geetha and Malthi, two classmates who had always been especially dear to me.

What surprised me even more was how naturally some of those old connections returned. I had thought of them as people I had lost touch with long ago. But when we reconnected, I realised that some of them still thought of me simply as their friend.

Perhaps I had lost contact. Perhaps the friendship itself had never really disappeared.

Then came another coincidence.

Malthi saw my name in the group and messaged me. On March 25, which happened to be my birthday, we ended up meeting and spending the evening together.

There was something I had carried with me for years. I had not been able to attend her wedding, and when we met, I finally had the chance to tell her how sorry I was that I could not be there.

It was such a small sentence, but it had stayed somewhere in my heart for a very long time.

And that is what made the whole experience feel strange and beautiful to me.

One unexpected reconnection had led me back to a group of people I had once shared so much of my everyday life with. It brought Geetha and Malthi back into my world, and slowly, I began finding others too.

Looking at these old graduation photographs now feels different.

At the time, they were simply pictures of ordinary college days — classrooms, outings, groups of friends, laughter and moments we probably never imagined would one day become memories we treasured.

Years later, those photographs became little reminders that people can disappear from our daily lives without completely disappearing from our story.

Maybe that was the real coincidence.

I thought I had lost those friendships years ago.

It turned out that, in some hearts, they had never really been lost at all.