It is commonly said by the emotional, the loners, the sarcastic and just generally people who hate the world; how people are born alone in this world and die alone. And you would expect that an emotional loner like me would think the same way. But I found that there is a great amount of time in between being born and dying when you are not alone. ------------------------------ -It is within our nature as human beings to be very social. We live by, with, through and sometimes for other people; otherwise, such in the case of Tom Hanks in Castaway, being by ourselves would drive us insane. But then again, in the great war of socializing insanity can just as easily happen. I am twenty-one years old and I have been in this war for roughly nineteen years. I have made alliances with the rich, the poor, the intellectual, the moron, the young, the old, the drama queen, the comedian, the proud, the tippler, the holy, the unholy, the talented, the clumsy, the busy, the lazy, the musician, the weirdo, the artist, the know-it-all, the unconventional and so many others. I have dodged some bullets, used myself as a shield for my allies and took a stab at my enemies. I have spied and have been spied at. I have betrayed alliances and been betrayed at. I have been stabbed, shot, tortured and almost killed within this great and bloody war. But astonishingly, here I am still breathing and I am telling you now that that is not a miracle. The miracle, my dear reader lies in the existence of true alliances – the existence of my true and loyal yet vicious best friends. I am not very good with Mathematics that is why I have never dreamed of being an accountant but it does not take a mathematician to know that the odds of finding true and loyal friends are very rare. That is the reason why I feel blessed that I have found four – Josce, Amy, Meg and Chek.I have known Josce Marie Caceres since the fourth grade and we have been best of friends since. It all started from going home together. We would often walk from school to our houses and spend that time to talk about—well, EVERYTHING! At first glance, you would think that she is the silent, mature and serious type of person. But you cannot be more wrong. She can be loud, immature and comical. She is a bundle of fun. I can still remember the nights I spent in Los Baños getting drunk with her and the mornings we spent laying in bed with the worst hangover yet laughing all the same. I can still remember how we were wrapped in each other’s arms as we cry about our broken hearts, then laugh about how pathetically silly and petty we can be. But because we were separated in college, (she was an Economics student in Los Baños while I was an Integrated Marketing Communication student in Ortigas) new friendship also blossomed. Amelainne Sherina Cabuya, whose very feminine name does not suit her one bit, was my blockmate in my first year in college. She is a sporty, fun and extremely loud woman. She was a goalie for the University’s Futsal Varsity Team and you would usually hear her shouting “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” in the promenade. I swear sometimes it was embarrassing to be with her. I would smack her head a couple of times to bring some sense in to her. Like me, she has a lot of drama in her life – her first and long-time boyfriend to whom she has given up everything had beaten her up. I remember how we used to lock ourselves in the school bathroom and talk about our lives, our plans for the future and the cute but slightly obtuse guys at school. Sadly, because our class schedules did not meet and my depression got the best of me, I left college for two years during which I found a new avenue for making friends – the onemanga.com chatbox where I met my youngest best friend, Meghana Kotikolapudi. Meg, when I first met her more than three years ago was a 14 – year old Indian girl living in England. Her passion for anime and manga was something we shared; and her honest, slightly mean demeanor and intelligence were qualities I found attractive for a friend. We enjoyed talking to one another so much that it came to a point that we only went online just to talk to one another. We shared our life-stories that believe it or not, is not something a wise person who has lived their lives online for so long would do. We trust each other and see each other like best friends. Our friendship was certainly not something that we expected to find online. For that matter, another of my life’s unexpected happenings is the friendship between Christine Belle Zabala and myself. We have known each other since we were, perhaps, four years old. One cannot be certain about these things when you have been friends since before one conceived and understood the concept of time. We were never really friends from the start. She hated me. I hated her. I threw her shoe out the window after a wedding of our parents’ common friend. She slapped me and pulled my hair when we were in second grade. In first grade, I told our classmates that she is a witch, led them to run after her around school holding rosaries and cried out “Kill the witch! Kill the witch!” Hmm—those were the good times. But today, she is the greatest friend I have – my coffee-buddy, my book-swapper, the annoying voice in my head telling me not to be stupid - the very best of my best friends. These friends – alliances that I have formed during different times of my life are what keep me going. They are fun, annoying and most of them are often bitchy. But I love them, especially now– Chek is in Cebu pursuing her dream job in Big Foot Productions, Josce is in Naga studying Accountancy, Amy is in Singapore living her life and Meg is in England hoping to get in to Oxford - miles of emptiness are between us yet they are always just a phone call, a text message, an email away. They are always hoping for my happiness, supporting what I want to do with my life and always ready to catch me again and again and again, over and over until their arms break. What’s not to like—to love about these precious alliances, these diamonds in the rough, my spoils in war? Can you think of any?
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Rhodaviv Villarosa AvilaThe author of this blog is currently an English and Literature College Instructor in Camarines Norte State College, Daet in the tropical paradise, the Philippine archipelago. Archives
August 2014
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