(l-r) Jocelyn, Em, Ada, me, Boni

I met the Girls at different stages in my life. The first was Ada, and that was WAAAAAAY back in kindergarten. We spent all of one year together, and then she took off for another school. I think Jocelyn (a.k.a. Jaws) was next, although it was in an indirect fashion. She was a friend and day school classmate of my friend Cora, who was in my Saturday morning Chinese school class. So, every Saturday at recess, I would hang out with Cora and "Cora's friend", and Jocelyn would do the same. Emily was also someone that I had met at Chinese school, except that she was actually in my class. It wasn't until I switched middle schools in Grade 7 that all of these people came together, and I was reunited with Ada and Em and Jaws, who had become my own friend as opposed to a friend of a friend. At the same time, Laboni (a.k.a. Boni) was into this mix. The five of us, along with the countless others whom I met while in the land of the "Gifties", was what made the rest of my middle school years bearable.

Unfortunately, Ada moved to the other side of the world when we got to high school, but we kept in touch and she came and visited us every two years or so for approximately two hours at a time. The remaining four of us had many an adventure and pulled off numerous capers over the next five years.

Then university started. Em and Boni stayed at home while Jaws and I ventured out into the weird and wonderful realm of Kitchener-Waterloo. Despite the distance, we scheduled get-togethers whenever possible, and, since we had each chosen a different career path, had new things to talk about.

All things come to an end, but where one thing ends another begins (or begins again, as the case may be). Once university had finished for all of us, who should return but Ada, fresh from the world of the full-time employed, reentering academia in the form of law school.

So here we are again at the beginning of the circle, the five of us together and having adventures once more. If we aren't getting lost in the woods and ending up on the side of the highway, then we're annoying various coffee shop employees by sitting and chatting way past the closing time. We were in the park one day, and as we sat and ate lunch, a group of women passed by, each pushing a stroller while doing assorted exercises. The five of us looked at each other and Em said, "You know, that's going to be us someday." We all laughed, but I have a feeling that it's probably true.