Do I know you?

Have you ever noticed how intertwined our lives are with the people around us?

I mean look around you and you'd see people. The only times you won't other people are when you are taking a crap in some cubicle or you are lost all by yourself einter in the jungle or out at sea. That will put us in 2 extremely opposite situation, the former, you have no wish to see another pair of eyes staring back at you while the latter, you wish for someone to look at you, well, more to look for you than anything else.

Well, whatever it is, the fact remains that our lives are somewhat intertwined with each other. Whether we like or not, it is a fact that our every action, word spoken and every move affects someone else. Consider this, you sneeze loudly, people will turn and look at you; you talk loudly, people will glare at you, and if you fart, people will pinch their noses and walk away as soon as they can from Ground Zero.

We all go through many phases in our lifetime - when we were kids, when we were in primary school, secondary school, polytechnic, JCs and for the few smart ones, university. Then, we start work, go through many courses, meet more people yet again. So many people have walked into our lives and, some, left it as quickly as they came, yet there as those few who have made a small imprint in our lives, be it a footnote in our life's story or an indelible mark permanently etched in our memory.

So many times, have we stumbled upon a face so familiar yet we can't recall who they are or where we met them. A lot of times it takes a lot of courage just to approach that some one so familiar to say "Hi, don't I know you from somewhere?". More so if it happens to be that cute girl you used to admire from afar back in school. Well, it happens to me a lot of times. In fact more often than not, I'd just pass by and act like I never met them, unless of course they recognised me firstor gave some form of acknowledgement by way of a smile.

Best part of it all is, there area few occasions where I know the face but just can't put my finger on their name or even where we met. Recently, I met with an aquaintance, whom I knew from my National Service days. We served in the same camp, he was a clerk, while I was a medic. I guess he recognised my face but like me, unsure who I was and whether or not I knew him. It's only when I first said, "You look familiar, don't I know you from somewhere?" that he smiled and acknowledged me and after some fact finding did we establish and were able to recall.

I guess he forms some of the countless footnotes in my life. Isn't it weird? The people you left behind and have and having no attachments to, seem to come back into your life every now and then, while the people whom you have lost contact with and long to meet again, never seem to appear and those who are currently hanging around us, whom we have no inclination to ever see again, never seem to leave.