Meeting with the past

It was with a certain dread, excitement and anticipation I installed myself in a cab to take me from Copenhagen to Malmo. It’s one of those few occasions, when you really have no clue how things will turn out. There will be people you haven’t met since your early teens, a period which for most part I have tried to forget…

The taxi couldn’t find the street, and my own recollection of my birth place had become rather dim with time. But the extra 15 min of circling about bought me well needed time to compose myself. With a bottle of white next to me, I almost felt compelled to open it and take a few sips to calm down those butterflies that circled through my system. But then the cab pulled up and I realised I was there. I got out, a few misplaced steps, aided by my Christian Louboutin’s. I had walked in them the night before and managed to sustain a blister on my right foot. The pain kept shooting from the sore point, despite the double plasters I had put on. Ah well, I would just have to take a few shots and the pain would surely fade away to the oblivion.

S gave me the code to the door to get in. I made a mental note that this is something I rarely see in Holland, unless you are living on an estate. But this, as well as the prehistoric lift are common in Sweden, and despite a faint claustrophobia, I installed myself in the narrow lift praying for it to take me to the top floor in one piece. The door opened, and S was standing there, still as beautiful as I remembered her from my first years in school. She was voted to become the Lucia of our class, and I recall feeling envious of her long flowing hair, a stark contrast to my own boyish haircut.

“Hi”, I said. I can’t recall if I gave her a hug which is custom in Sweden, or just handed over the bottle of wine. It was still warm from having been misplaced over a fridge at Seven Eleven, a shame for an otherwise perfectly good wine.

Was it custom to bring a bottle of wine to a party in Sweden? Or was it flowers?
C appeared in the doorway and gave me a warm, familiar hug. It’s always so good to see her, my oldest friend and probably still closest confidante. M, F, J and S rapidly joined in. Some of these girls I hadn’t seen for something like 15 years. It all felt very surreal.

When you leave your home country, you also leave a little piece of you behind. Perhaps it’s the person you don’t want to be, the traits you long to discard and never look back upon. For me that was a very awkward girl, full of apprehension and insecurities. The girl who blended in rather than stood out. The girl that was never considered pretty, not even smart even though intelligence was on her side. So when I left, I invented a new persona for myself. Someone infinitely more exciting than the twin-personality left behind. Perhaps this has left me with an unresolved Janus complex lingering underneath the surface. One can only speculate…

So meeting people from the past posts a new dilemma. Do you stick to your new, assumed role or resurrect the old one? Although how hard you try to talk yourself into who you are now, who you have become, deep down you are the one you were all those years ago. That is what people will see, surely.

For a moment, I pondered on this. In fact purely hypothetical, because contrary to what I expected, I felt the past was the past and better left where it once got buried.

We left soon afterwards for the restaurant, and met up with the rest of the class who started to drop by soon after we arrived. I could sense others felt the same nerves that had haunted me, but any discomfort soon turned into a merry atmosphere as drinks and food was served.

Another thing, I found rather interesting was meeting people I wasn’t close friends with in school but now felt drawn towards. Another piece of evidence that as time wears on we change, assume new roles and identities as we let our experiences dictate who we are.

I had great conversations, especially with C.O. who I had known since kindergarten. As Petrus denied Jesus 3 times before sunrise, C.O. apologized for his misdemeanors thrice between main course and dessert. I accepted his apologies for having puked on me and made a habit of torturing me in my neck. The third and most insulting of them all, was his definitive statement that house music died in 1989. I never really got over this episode, and it wasn’t until Saturday I felt I could finally put it behind me. In fact I have desperately wanted to prove my point to him ever since and thus our re-union provided ample opportunity. C.O. in return wanted to have a certain rumor verified. Did I really smear N in honey whilst tied up and blindfolded to a bed? I can only admit to this most horrid of offences, one I am sure N. never fully recovered from. But to my defence I was at the tender age of 15 and didn’t know better. Needless to say N had to shave off his chest hair and I still hear a patch remains bald to this day.

A little before 3 am, the party was disintegrating and not wanting to turn into a pumpkin I called a cab to take me back to Copenhagen. I slept like a log, as the past was visiting my dreams…

*Thank you Maria for a great make-up! Maria Kai, make-up artist from

MAC, Copenhagen can be found here

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