It’s been quite a while since the Gang got together. In fact, I haven’t seen some of these people since August/September last year, or at least not all together. Things have mainly been individual lunches here or dinner there or coffee when we found the time. Tonight, in honor of a birthday, we gathered (all of us, almost) for a late dinner at Anthem. It’s always nice to try out a new eatery, especially one that I hadn’t even heard of before.

By the time everyone trickled in, we moved the conversations from the bar to our reserved table for 16. Along the way, like one of those handshake games where you go around and shake everyone’s hand exactly once, we all naturally fell into a ritual of chatting, clinking glasses, and going out of our ways to say hi to every person, even the one headed toward that far other end of the table. As I glanced all around me, I saw hugs, kisses, winks, happy laughing faces, and smiling faces who radiated back genuine happiness at seeing me, and each other, again.

I felt like I was in the final scene of those romantic comedies that come out around the holidays, where everyone’s gathered around a big table, laughing and happy, but you can’t make out what any of them are saying because warm and fuzzy music is playing, leading to the credits rolling. So this time, my life felt like a happy movie. The best part is that this is just the beginning, and not the conclusion of my movie.

Unfortunately, the night had to end with the restaurant playing The Scientist by Coldplay. I never really paid attention to the lyrics, nothing beyond the eerily haunting melody. Ironically, I looked up the lyrics just earlier today. They are quite sad, but somehow right for my life at just about now. I cut the night short (the others were all going out, albeit only having about an hour before last calls), wanting to come home instead and just curl up against my pillow with my book of the moment.