The Odd Couple

If you saw them from afar, you would consider them an odd couple. Two boys sit on the inky blue slide at Drumsite Park, Christmas Island - one is tall, dark and lanky; the other is rather short, stubby and red in the face. As they watch the sparse procession of cars roll along Murray Road, little do the boys know that, despite the slightly juxtaposed appearance, their lives will follow strangely similar parallels. As they will find out however, behind every great friendship is an even greater story. 

This tale starts, as you may have gathered, with these two boys, one of whom happens to be myself (the short, stubby, red-faced one), and the other is one of my best friends. Looking back, I can't help but feel that Jensen Tan (or 'Jens' as he as affectionately known) and I were always destined to become good friends. For one, we were both stuck on the same dog-shaped rock in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a vast majority of our childhood years. Add on top of that the fact that we lived two houses down from each other on the same street on said tiny dog-shaped rock, and it's impossible to see how we could not have become friends. Some call it destiny - I just call it good luck! 

Circus days: Unfortunately I am not doing the 'Two High" with Jensen in this photo - I'm top right and he's third from the left in the front row.  

We spent our youths tearing up the streets of Drumsite on our push-bikes (and Uncle Burt's quad-bike, which almost cost us our lives on countless occasions), dodging crabs, going on treks to all the best beaches, playing soccer and cricket, and schooling together at CIDHS. Our bonds were tightened closer still as the annual circus came to town, and we were always Two-High partners (and even attempting the dreaded Three-High on occasion) - now if that isn't going to create virtually unbreakable trust between two people, I don't know what is.

 

Shenanigans: Jensen, Aidan and myself. 

However, the Island life is a harsh mistress for young futures, and the day came where all who had become so close had to be separated, and thrown into the crewel reality life in the big smoke... of Perth. The strange thing is, despite living highly separate lives since the Island days, the stories Jensen and Chris tended to follow freakishly similar parallels. There are tales of love and loss, or adventure and travel, of nightlife shenanigans and friendships, eternal and unlikely. We both went through highschool and uni, still listen to the same music, partake in the same activities, and enjoy the odd queerly flavoured vodka every now and then. We both fell in love with our respective partners within 6 moths of each other, and we both entered the brave new world of full-time work on exactly the same day in 2012 (without planning to do so in the slightest). 

Still friends: New Years Morning at Kings Park, 2011 - What a year it would turn out to be  for the both of us!

Jens and I have both come a long way since the days of the tall lanky and squat chubby boys sitting on the blue slide down at Drumsite Park, and although the time we spend together now is fleeting, it never feels like we've missed a beat. They say time is the destroyer of all things, but if given the opportunity to reamend this statement I would change it to say this: "Time is the destroyer of all things trivial". And friendship - true friendship - is not one of them.

Because I know I will have this one to my dying day.