This was my winning entry to a writing contest about friendship organised by O2, which was published in the Irish Metro Magazine on June 1, 2007.
Nervously I checked my watch for what felt like the millionth time. Five to six, another five minutes. So many thoughts were going through my head. Would I recognise her? Would she recognise me? What on earth would we talk about? I had no clue as to what she did these days, I didn’t even know where she lived!
Ten years had passed since I met her. I was an exchange student in Finland, she was one of my first Finnish friends. After Finland I travelled the world and we didn’t really keep in touch, apart from a few lines every once in a while. The last time I had seen her was four years ago, when we both happened to be studying in Germany. Each on another side of the country, but we managed to meet up for a day, share our memories and fill each other in on our current lives. Of course we promised to mail more often, but like the way it usually is, we were too busy to actually write.
Two days ago I got an email from her. She’d be in Dublin for a couple of days and if I was still living there, would I like to meet for a drink? So there I was, wondering if this was actually a good idea. What if we were complete strangers to each other?
Then I saw her. She saw me. We hugged each other tightly. We couldn’t stop grinning, words kept tumbling out of our mouths. Had I really worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about? Nothing had changed; we were still friends like we were back then. Neither time nor distance had come between us. That’s when I knew we’ll always be friends, no matter what happens.