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After an ordinary day with Lank, Hatter, and Tony, the goodbye reveals its weight: Hatter may not see the other three again for a year, and no one knows when all four paths will align after graduation. Hatter’s post—asking when they will meet again and suggesting that growing up means more time apart and fewer moments together—captures a shift the author has only recently begun to feel. “Let’s do this again” is no longer automatic when friends live in different cities and follow different calendars. Rather than turn the moment into a grand lesson, the essay keeps the post and the day’s photographs as a small archive, to be revisited when the four finally share a table again.

AI-generated digest · reviewed by the author A quick orientation to the essay’s central ideas

I met up with Lank, Hatter, and Tony today.

It was, really, an entirely ordinary day. We ate, talked, and wandered around. Nothing happened that seemed especially worth recording on its own. Even before it was time to leave, I did not feel strongly that this meeting was any different.

Then, just as we were about to go our separate ways, it suddenly occurred to me: after saying goodbye to Hatter this time, the next time I see him may be a year from now.

Lank, Tony, and I will still be in the UK for another year, so in the short term, at least, our paths have not entirely diverged. Hatter is different. Over the coming year, each of us will continue living somewhere else. After that, once the three of us graduate too, no one knows where we will stay, what we will do, or when the four of us might next sit around a table like this.

Partings are strange sometimes. Most arrive without ceremony. No one solemnly tells you, “After today, it will be a long time before you see one another again.” More often, you finish a meal, reach a street corner, say “see you next time,” and head home in different directions. Only later do you realise that the casual “next time” may be a long way off.

Later, I saw the Moment Hatter had posted:

So when will we see one another next?
Perhaps growing up simply means more time apart and fewer moments together.

Hatter · WeChat Moments

When I read it, I thought he had captured the feeling rather precisely.

I have already written a great deal about growing up, friendship, parting, and the future. This time, I do not particularly want to stretch the moment into another lesson about life. We are not saying goodbye forever, after all, and a year is not really that long.

It is simply that I used to assume, whenever I saw a friend, that there would naturally be a next time. Only recently have I begun to understand that “let’s do this again” is not as certain as it sounds. The radius of everyone’s life keeps widening. We move to different cities, do different things, and live by different calendars. Simply happening to be in the same place, at the same time, with enough room to sit down for a meal is beginning to require a little luck.

So I am reposting Hatter’s Moment here.

Partly as a reply, and partly to leave a small record of today.

Two friends sit at a rooftop table at night, with the illuminated Shanghai skyline and river spread out behind them.
One city, one table, one evening that may be difficult to reproduce in exactly the same way.
A bowl of soup, tea, and tableware in the foreground, with a friend seated softly out of focus across the restaurant table.
Meals are how ordinary days leave evidence.
Two friends take a selfie beside a window at night, with the illuminated Shanghai skyline across the river behind them.
Before goodbye gave the evening a different weight.
A friend sits at a Vivienne Westwood-themed bus-stop display beside a bright red British telephone box.
Wandering around, with no need for the day to become an occasion.
A friend uses a leg-press machine in a bright gym overlooking the river and city buildings through large windows.
A pause somewhere in the middle of the day.
A large round restaurant table after dinner, with nearly finished dishes, chopsticks, spoons, and a red drink still in place.
By the time the table is nearly clear, everyone is already talking about what comes next.
Four friends gather around a restaurant table covered with dishes and tea, leaning into a group photograph after dinner.
Lank, Hatter, Tony, and me: together on an ordinary day, while it was still easy to assume there would soon be another.
A screenshot of Hatter’s WeChat Moment asking when the friends will meet again and reflecting that growing up means more time apart and fewer moments together.
Hatter’s Moment: “So when will we see one another next? Perhaps growing up simply means more time apart and fewer moments together.”

I hope that, on some day a year from now, we really are sitting around the same table again—and that we come back to read this then.