We had been planning this get-together with friends for months, and although most of my friends are already retired, we hadn't been able to find a time in our schedules to meet up. But finally, the get-together happened, and as the tomato sauce slogan says: good things come to those who wait.

We decided to have an arepazo, so we would all bring arepas and food to fill them with. I decided to bring cheese and make a chicken salad to make “reina pepeada” style arepas, which is basically an arepa with carrot salad, potatoes, chicken, peas, and mayonnaise. Others brought stewed chicken, fish, avocados, smoked chorizo, and roasted vegetables (which, by the way, were delicious).

The great thing about this group of friends is that they are teachers, many of them were my college professors, and now more than colleagues, they are my soul mates. Even though they are a few years older than me, we have many topics of conversation in common, and we almost always have enriching and rewarding conversations. So, we not only share food, we also share interests and stories.

Among ourselves, we talk about politics, economics, religion, psychology, social media, and even literature. One of my friends just released a new book, so we talked about the story and characters in his novel. Also, as is almost always the case, we make up stories just for fun and to pass the time. This time, América's story about a couple of lovers who met almost every afternoon on the beach won us over. Her story kept us on the edge of our seats and filled with curiosity.

In the afternoon, as the gathering was at the beach house of two of them, we wanted to watch the sunset, so we went outside to soak up the colors and the sea breeze. It was a unique moment because we know how special these moments of communion and beauty can be. We were in no hurry to go back inside and stayed until the sun said goodbye and the moon had to light our way.

At night, we said goodbye with the usual promise to meet again very soon. We will surely create a new menu and build new stories that will delight everyone. While we wait for the next gathering, we send each other voice notes and messages through our WhatsApp group so that we can embrace each other daily and not feel so alone.

I agree with those who say that a life without friends is a bleak life. I have few friends, but those few are an invaluable treasure to me.