Old friends never get old. Well, I guess they do get older, but it’s never old being with them again.

When you’re with old friends, you talk about things that happened a long time ago and you remember them as if they just happened. You relive the past in the present time.

There is a sense that time stands still when you are with old friends. Even though we don’t have the same physique we once had, and parts of our bodies don’t work as well as they used to, somehow we are able to see ourselves in alter states of say 20 or 30 years in the past.

It’s a curious thing. But much like the size of the fisherman’s catch that got away, our stories seem bigger and better. They amuse and excite others; we get built up in their eyes … or at least our own eyes.

It’s not that it happens all the time. The mood or the atmosphere has to be right to bring back the past in such technicolour, with such glory.

It happened just the other day. Lily and I were with an old friend we went to Bible College with. We’d been watching hockey on TV and I can’t even tell you how the conversation got started.

But one memory connected to another and soon the TV was off (after the game of course), and we were into full-blown nostalgia mode.

You could see it in the eyes and expressions of our kids as they listened on and on to stories they had been part of – tales that were foggy at best in their minds, but were now developing real substance and a vivid image in their newly refined memories.

Some of those stories will be told to their children; some of them will be acted out before their children with a bigger and better feel to them:

… The story of football games in the family room, how I fixed the score before we started, just to create tension and excitement in my kids till they almost burst.

… The stories of back when we were in school, the antics in the dorms that became legendary at the college. It was like we were the heroes of old, the past celebrities recounting life as it was when they were stars.

Those moments create a warm feeling that draws everyone in the room closer together like there is some secret information that they are now privileged to care for … like they’ve been invited into the inner circle.

You just don’t want those times to end; you wish they could continue forever. You want to talk and listen, and continue to light up the eyes of your kids. But you realize that you’re not that age any more. You get tired and can’t pull the all-nighters of the olden days.

You snap back to the reality of the present, and become cognisant that you are thirty pounds heavier, your hair is thinning, and you don’t look anything like the guy in the stories.

But it was great to go back there for a while.

Here’s the thing: You can remember the past, visit the past, make the past seem bigger and better than real life. But you can’t bring the past back to life; you can’t live in the past. So let the past teach you; let it inspire you to live in the present in such a way that you will want to bring colour to this present again. And may God be glorified in those memories.

Question: What were the circumstance that led to your last memory fest? Leave your comments below.