Some Things Do Stay

I'm never a keeper, for I've realized a long time ago how caring only leaves me nothing but hurt. So I simply keep distance with everything I own, including friends.

I don't want to get too up close and personal with them knowing sooner or later they would move somewhere geographically or socially. I train myself so hard not to miss talking to them or exchanging greetings with them when they disappear from my sights, as well as from my cellphone, and then completely out of my life. I don't want to get through another breakup night in front of my so-much-in-love girlfriends holding hands under a table with their new boyfriends. Yes, I'm downright selfish and coldblooded.

So far I could move on to one close friend to another without making such a big fuss. I would only sigh the minute I realized we stopped talking like before.

All but one.

She's a teen years friend of mine. After being my partner in crime for 3 years during high school, she had her mind made up to get schooling in a far off land. A restless teenager that I was, to me friendship was all about seeing each other on a daily basis, talking all the nonsense, and doing things together. I cried myself to sleep from reading a long goodbye note she wrote and as hugging her so hard at the airport, I somehow doubted we would still hear from each other by the time she reached her new home.

But I was wrong. She kept writing me long letters, if not calling me for hours from her faraway land. She never missed my birthdays, graduation day, Christmas, and even Easter. In fact, she's the one who writes and calls me more than I do to her.

It's been 9 years since I saw her off at the airport and yet I still talk to her, though it's always her who initiates asking me how I've been holding on, which then I would hesitate to reply, for I don't know where to start. It's been 9 years since those long goodbye notes and I still didn't miss crying on her wedding, upon knowing her pregnancy, premature labor, and seeing the baby boy.

In the middle of savoring a miso soup at my birthday lunch with girlfriends from high school last weekend, never in my wildest hope I would see her waving at me from the other side of glass window. I couldn't believe my eyes when they captured her big eyes and smile, waving at me with one hand and pushing a baby cart with another.

It was really her. On my birthday lunch!

I couldn't hold back my tears when seeing her and the baby, who I thought I would only see him by the time he's going to college. Seeing them, I saw a reflection of my own life journey. The women we turned out to be. She, who I used to screamed at on the phone when telling her I got somebody popped my cherry. She, who chose to call me of all people near her, when she had bad fights with her boyfriend turned now husband. She, who I still miss pouring my heart out when men leave severe scars in my heart.

Ah, some things do stay.