The past month has been a fun time of getting re-acquainted with old friends either via email or face-to-face meet-ups.

It is always amazing to me that we can just pick up our friendship anytime even tho we may not have seen or spoken with each other for years!

I once read that this is due to our emotional banks being very "full". Meaning, as we make friends and acquaintances, we deposit into each other's emotional banks that we withdraw from over the years.

A healthy relationship has both credit and debit accounts, aka give and take. But an unhealthy, needy relationship is one that has one party often debiting from the account with little or no credit back to it. Over time, we would tend to avoid this relationship. Ok - this is my impression of what emotional banking means so don't go around quoting me!

But I think this theory holds water for me.

As I look back (as tho I am that old, huh? ), I realise that the friends that I have kept in contact with are those I made while in ballet school. Nowadays, we meet at most once a year on Christmas Day for about 2 - 3 hours and then disappear on each other. And yet when we meet, we always have a million things to talk about and laugh over. There is an ease in our relationship that time seems to have little impact over.

I started balled when I was 7yrs old with a Australian lady called Mrs Simon. Then I switched to Sylvia McCully School of Dancing (at Thomson Plaza now) after finishing Grade 4 because Mrs Simon only took girls up to Grade 4. It was at Ms McCully's school that I really bloomed and enjoyed ballet even more than I had before.

I spent many days and nights at Ms McCully's studio for my regular class and for rehearsals. (I guess that's when a lot of emotional banking accounts were set up!) It was at Ms McCully's school that I discovered the thrill of performing infront of an audience!

Since I spent most of my waking hours at the studio, it was only natural that the people I met there became some of my closest friends. We became a tightly knit group. When a performance loomed, it wouldn't be unusual to find us camped at the studio the whole day and night. We probably spent more time with each other than our siblings!

So I guess it isn't surprising that we are able to pick up from wherever we left and continue our relationship. We have grown from giggly schoolgirls to mothers. That's a lot of history between us!

I pray and hope that we will continue to be good friends till we are old and gray coz friends like these are hard to find nowadays.

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Posted by Del

OH!!!! I never knew that you are a ballerina!!!! :D

hee hee, give my girl some tips ya ;)... she enjoys it a lot too :)

Posted by MamaLim

One wouldn't be able to tell, right? Lol!

My only tip - enjoy it! I really did and that's why was able to continue till my mid-20s even though many dropped out by the time they reached secondary school.

And my goal is to go back when my there are no more babies and toddlers in my house! But dunno when that day will be!

Posted by sam

Are you in any of the huge photos outside the school? I studied for a long time but couldn't quite figure out. So many possibilities of a younger you! *haha* I only know you were real slim, and yah, I've seen the photos of you dancing at your house of course.

Posted by MamaLim

I'm still in one of those photos :) But not the recent ones, of course! So look for the ones on the right panel. Can't remember position of the pix already lah. Nowadays dh is the one who sends S to class.