Old friends growing up together.

Less than 2 weeks ago I met a friend of mine that I've been friends with since I was about 7 or 8. We were talking generally about university life, approaching deadlines and nights out. The conversation lasted longer than I expected and we got into talking about the amount of mutual friends slightly older/younger than us who were pregnant - people we'd grown up with playing Kerby on the footpaths.

I love those friendships. The ones where you were never best friends, but always will stop and have a good conversation maturely and with no awkwardness.

Inevitably the conversation went back to the friends in our past friendship circle. One of which I had fallen out with when I was 13, one who I fell out with as soon as I met him and one whom I'd have online conversations with now and again. When I asked about the last one I mentionned I was told that my friend met up with her recently - and she was completely stuck in the past.

When I say stuck in the past - I mean that instead of asking about uni/work/what's new, she was asking 'Oh, have you seen ____'. People that I haven't seen since I was eleven running about the street eating mini pot noodles in an orange and blue full tracksuit. I couldn't believe that those people were still on her mind. She persisted asking about people and places you've left quite firmly in the past as if they were perfectly adequate questions to be asking.

Similarly, all around me are words of reunions and old bands getting back together. Nostalgia is great, but you can't spend all your present living in the past - even if it's in a good way. And yes meet up with old friends and reminise but try and keep it current or else they are always going to be old friends and not current friends.

Remember that instead of playing kerby with your sister you're hugging her after a bad break up. Instead of posting your friends handmade letters through thier doors you're sitting in the house you share talking about your career. You don't have to give up your past but try to transform it into something that will grow.