An ode to eleven years of wonderful friendship. Written February 6, 2001.
One Saturday night, while walking down the deserted street, a thought suddenly struck me. Weekend nights are usually spent with friends, hanging out somewhere, having fun. Why was I alone? I may have seemed pathetic and half-expected someone to say, “Hey girl, get a life.” Oh I do, my life revolved around the church, family and work. Don’t I have friends to hang out with? you ask.
A text message breaks into my reverie. “Where are you? Shall I send someone to pick you up?” my best friend asks. We were supposed to have a reunion with our former high school classmates. “Still in Manila.” I replied, smiling to myself. I could imagine them, a bunch of people in their mid-twenties, young professionals, some married with children, some still single and busy with post-graduate studies, most probably gorging on food and beer, wreaking noisy havoc in somebody’s living room. My friends. I could join them, I know, but I decided not to and went home to sleep instead. Anyway, they’ve always known I’m more of a loner and a homebody rather than a gimmick girl.
My sisters kid me that my friends either hang out at the Creek or at Central Perk since I spend most of my time in front of the television rather than with flesh and blood. I guess that’s how most people measure friendship. On films and TV programs, we mostly see friends who are together most of the time, doing things together, inseparable. There was a time in my life that I believed that too. That true friendship is measured by the amount of time you spend together, the number of gimmicks you attend, the hours you burn on the telephone lines. But I learned that there’s more to friendship. Being physically near doesn’t necessarily indicate closeness.
I have a group of close friends and we call ourselves CGs. Even before we gave our clique a name, we already hung out with each other most of the time, gravitating towards each other in a class of 30 students. We went through puberty together and shared a lot of the joys and pains of growing up. We also shared school assignments, projects, hairstyles, and boyfriends. Name it and probably the eight of us did it. But ever since high school graduation, it’s lucky if we saw each other once a year. But I think the strength of our friendship can be proved by the distance between us. Because despite that we manage to update one another of each other’s lives and come through for whoever needed support. Instead of taking us apart, we thrived on it. Maybe the space allowed room for us to grow individually and mature. Or maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder. Or maybe we just loved each other too much to make distance matter. It’s uncanny, but whenever I feel low, I receive email or text messages from one of them, reminding me that there are seven women out there who loved me for who I am and whom I loved back.
My best friend and I could go for months without seeing each other. We send text and email messages irregularly, particularly if there’s juicy gossip to share, but honest-to-goodness conversation? Nah. But we never doubt the reality of our friendship. We know we can count on each other when it matters, where it matters. I don’t have to have coffee with her every Friday night and waste hours chatting idly. Oh, once in a while we make plans to see each other and paint the town red (and blue and green and purple) but the point is, our friendship is already beyond that.
I am alone, walking in a deserted street, on a Saturday night. But not one of them would think it strange. Because they know that’s how I want it. There’s no need to go anywhere or do anything if I don’t feel like it. There’s no need to pretend to be happy if I’m not and vice versa. There’s no need to pretend to be nonchalant if I really cared and vice versa. There’s no need to lie. Because they know who I really am. There’s no need to see each other because we ARE together in our hearts and souls.
Happy 11th Anniversary, CGs!
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The Dungeon
I don’t think man invented the wheels for me. Written November 10, 2000.
Whoever the inventor of the wheel was, I have a firm suspicion that he has something against me. I was three or four at the time when my eldest sister Pinky took me for a ride on her bicycle. We started in front of our gate and barely reached the street corner (which was just a few feet away from the gate, by the way) when we were suddenly lying on the hot concrete floor, wheels and limbs in a tangled heap.
I decided then to stick to my little orange kiddie tricycle. I figured it was safe because it was a sturdy little thing with large heavy wheels that couldn’t possibly topple over. But of course, I proved the impossible. I was riding it in our garage and was carefully rounding a corner when the tricycle was suddenly the one riding me. Needless to say, I left it in the garage to rot until my mother thoughtfully gave it to a younger cousin.
Then there’s my brother’s skateboard. (I was smart enough to leave my sister’s roller skates alone.) It had a very wide top and I thought I’d start by sitting on the board (instead of standing) just to get the feel of it. I got the feel of the wooden gate on my forehead instead when the skateboard rolled down the driveway and I found out that my little feet were poor brakes.
When I got older, I guess Fate thought it was time for me to try something bigger. I was a college kid then and rode the bus to school everyday. It all started quite normally (they usually do, take my word for it) and I asked the driver to drop me off in front of the school. He did. Literally. I barely had a foot on the pavement when the bus sped away, leaving me to roll in the mud on Taft Avenue (one of the main roads in Manila). When I regained consciousness a few seconds later, I got up, wiped the blood from my arms and legs, and thanked the man who handed me my broken bracelet. I entered the university looking like something my cat wouldn’t drag in and the guard asked for my ID haughtily, never mind that my jeans had been ripped (that’s for wearing my sister’s clothes without permission) and I was covered in dirt and blood. But he did wave me in nonchalantly when I showed him my student’s ID. That accident was hard to top so Fate gave me a break until I graduated.
Oh, but I have a friend Kerwin, who loved carting all of his friends in his Pajero for a gimmick at Makati City. He’s a very fast driver and I wouldn’t sit in the front seat of his car for all the tea in China. The scratch marks on his upholstery were made by my nails. Fortunately, we all managed to graduate safe and sound despite his Grand Prix driving.
But when I started working, I guess Fate decided that my vacation was over too. There was the time I was alighting from a jeepney when my cane umbrella hooked itself to the vehicle. The jeep dragged me along for quite a few meters until I managed to unhook the umbrella. The jeep continued on its way (the driver was oblivious to the fact that he had an unwilling passenger choking on the exhaust from his mufflers) while I picked myself up from the street, dusted myself and walked home. I had to throw away my shoes and stockings after that. They were in shreds.
There’s also the time when I was crossing the street when my shoe came off. I was trying to slip it on again when a tricycle sped towards me and knocked me off my feet. The driver probably couldn't hear my screams for the pounding rain but after a while I guess he realized that the thing stuck on his windshield was a person. He stopped obligingly so I could scrape myself off his vehicle before he zoomed off. I told my boyfriend how I got the bruises on my legs. He chided me for screaming for help in English. “You should use Tagalog so they can understand you,” he snorted.
There’s also the time when I was riding a van with some friends. We were heading home from a weekend at the Hundred Islands in Pangasinan. I was sleeping, curled up in the back with my feet tucked in under me for warmth. The driver suddenly braked and I felt myself sliding from the seat onto the floor (where my knees wouldn’t fit earlier). My seatmate Evelyn watched all this with horrified eyes and tried to help me by grabbing my shirt. She only succeeded in pulling my shirt over my head and I suddenly felt the cold air from the air conditioner on my bare back. Talk about adding insult to injury. My friend Cathy told me later that the accident was cheerfully recounted by her brother Tonton at their dinner table. Oh well.
But thank heaven for small favors. Even if my boyfriend was a fast driver, I didn’t figure in any accident while in his van. (Well, except for the time when the van started backing into the busy street while we were both in the backseat. That was entirely the handbrake’s fault. You should have seen my boyfriend dive for the pedals then, cheese quesadillas and all.) Thing is, he used me as a replacement for his broken speedometer. He gauged his speed with the rate my face paled.
And just when I thought I had it all figured out, I had another accident just yesterday. I was crossing Taft Avenue (Again? I hear you sighing.) when a woman suddenly grabbed me and used me as a shield against an oncoming Tamaraw FX Taxi. She probably mistook me for Darna, the Philippine Wonder Woman. “Bakit mo ba ako tinutulak?” (Translation: “Why are you pushing me?”) I screamed at her, remembering my boyfriend’s admonition to speak in the vernacular. She didn’t answer and didn’t even look at me while I struggled against her. She pushed me back in front of the taxi and ran to the other side. Then I felt the FX bump my right hip, causing me to spin like a demented top in the middle of the busy street. The taxi sped away while I was still whirling. When I finally caught my breath AND my balance, I crossed the street quickly, boarded a bus for home and promptly burst into tears. “Not again,” I sobbed. I felt truly exasperated with my misadventures. I seem to be doing something wrong to keep having these accidents. Fortunately, there’s never anyone else hurt in all my accidents. I’m always on my own when these things happen. I’m not sure if that’s a sign though. I must be doing something wrong. My sister suggested that the woman probably hated my pink and lavender outfit on sight and decided to have me killed.
So, don’t ask me why I’m not eager to have driving lessons even if the Wrangler in the garage is up for grabs. I’m not really anxious to add a new kind of vehicular accident to my impressive repertoire. Not while I’m here lying in a bed of ice packs, thank you very much.
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