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friendships and growing up
Posted by adp
on
12:49 AM
Although it's valentine's day, this is not a post about my love life...or the lack of it...
It could pass as a post about love still...because I love my friends...ROFLMAO sa ka-cheesy-han...hahaha
I just realized how much and at the same time less effort it takes to maintain friendships as you grow old. When still babies, your friends were your cousins, sisters, brothers, yaya or parents. When still in school, your friends are your playmates, neighbors and classmates which most likely you see everyday. When you transfer schools (in my case, college) you make new friends, but still pinky promise to stay friends forever with the old ones. When you start working, you make all kinds of friends but not all turn out to be relationships. When you marry, your husband becomes your friend so does his family and his friends, then your children and your children's friends' family...and so on. And with that life happens and all seems complicated all of a sudden.
The farthest I can remember of friendships were my grade school friends. The ones I made a promise with to see on Jan. 1, 2000 in Quezon City Circle. Haha. We never get to fulfill that promise. Or some of them might had, sadly I didn't. By 2000 I found it silly and childish, today I look at it with fondness and regret. I'm still in touch with quite a few, thanks to social networking.
My high school friends probably were those who really stuck together. We see each other once a year or even less for some. But these six I can say withstood the test of varied experiences. We are as chopsuey as we can be and how we evolved into a group is almost always a topic worth reminiscing.
My college friends are quite hard for me to put into circles. I developed lots of varying friendships with a lot of people. My friends from my freshman block pretty much stuck together too. I used to see them once a year also, mostly christmas time. Apart from them I had friends from all batches, brought about by the org and my overstaying involvement to it. This people I see erratically. Sometimes often in periods and sometimes as rare as a blue moon.
This is where all the sudden realizations came from. Literally distance separates us. Of my closest college friends I could say 75 percent are not in Manila or not even in the Philippines at all. That's freaking 75 percent! That's one disadvantage of living in the age of globalization. It scatters relationships. Relationships are extra harder to maintain if what you want is the intimate kind of having dinners together, going out, travelling and being on each other's milestones. It easier if you prefer the less intrusive type of merely knowing about snippets of what's happening on each other's lives through statuses. I personally can't say if I prefer one over the other. Life is crazier this times. Busy is a word used as busy as it could be. I am glad I have both means, whatever it takes to 'connect' is fine with me. I am big on milestones though. And I want to spend time with friends no matter how rare that could be. It means only one thing, I have to save up on time and money so I can afford it. Haha. I forever have this wish to be in places where my friends lived or wherever they are now. My college friends are from all over the country and I made that my bucket list of places to go to in the Philippines. Then when some went abroad to settle, I added foreign countries to the list too. As of today I get to check one on that list. ONE. And I did not even meet my friends there because there was no time. I wonder if I get to fulfill that bucket list... Maybe if I win the lottery in the near future...
All this rant boils down to one recent event. I was supposed to be somewhere in the South the past weekend. I promised a friend last year I'd be there. My other friends were non-committal until recently. I didn't want to fly there alone and attend a social gathering of which I'd know no one except my friend. And add to that I wasn't foreseeing what situation I'd be right now. My friend is probably mad. But I hope he is happy... So congratulations to my newly married friend... hope to meet your wife and children someday... :)
It could pass as a post about love still...because I love my friends...ROFLMAO sa ka-cheesy-han...hahaha
I just realized how much and at the same time less effort it takes to maintain friendships as you grow old. When still babies, your friends were your cousins, sisters, brothers, yaya or parents. When still in school, your friends are your playmates, neighbors and classmates which most likely you see everyday. When you transfer schools (in my case, college) you make new friends, but still pinky promise to stay friends forever with the old ones. When you start working, you make all kinds of friends but not all turn out to be relationships. When you marry, your husband becomes your friend so does his family and his friends, then your children and your children's friends' family...and so on. And with that life happens and all seems complicated all of a sudden.
The farthest I can remember of friendships were my grade school friends. The ones I made a promise with to see on Jan. 1, 2000 in Quezon City Circle. Haha. We never get to fulfill that promise. Or some of them might had, sadly I didn't. By 2000 I found it silly and childish, today I look at it with fondness and regret. I'm still in touch with quite a few, thanks to social networking.
My high school friends probably were those who really stuck together. We see each other once a year or even less for some. But these six I can say withstood the test of varied experiences. We are as chopsuey as we can be and how we evolved into a group is almost always a topic worth reminiscing.
My college friends are quite hard for me to put into circles. I developed lots of varying friendships with a lot of people. My friends from my freshman block pretty much stuck together too. I used to see them once a year also, mostly christmas time. Apart from them I had friends from all batches, brought about by the org and my overstaying involvement to it. This people I see erratically. Sometimes often in periods and sometimes as rare as a blue moon.
This is where all the sudden realizations came from. Literally distance separates us. Of my closest college friends I could say 75 percent are not in Manila or not even in the Philippines at all. That's freaking 75 percent! That's one disadvantage of living in the age of globalization. It scatters relationships. Relationships are extra harder to maintain if what you want is the intimate kind of having dinners together, going out, travelling and being on each other's milestones. It easier if you prefer the less intrusive type of merely knowing about snippets of what's happening on each other's lives through statuses. I personally can't say if I prefer one over the other. Life is crazier this times. Busy is a word used as busy as it could be. I am glad I have both means, whatever it takes to 'connect' is fine with me. I am big on milestones though. And I want to spend time with friends no matter how rare that could be. It means only one thing, I have to save up on time and money so I can afford it. Haha. I forever have this wish to be in places where my friends lived or wherever they are now. My college friends are from all over the country and I made that my bucket list of places to go to in the Philippines. Then when some went abroad to settle, I added foreign countries to the list too. As of today I get to check one on that list. ONE. And I did not even meet my friends there because there was no time. I wonder if I get to fulfill that bucket list... Maybe if I win the lottery in the near future...
All this rant boils down to one recent event. I was supposed to be somewhere in the South the past weekend. I promised a friend last year I'd be there. My other friends were non-committal until recently. I didn't want to fly there alone and attend a social gathering of which I'd know no one except my friend. And add to that I wasn't foreseeing what situation I'd be right now. My friend is probably mad. But I hope he is happy... So congratulations to my newly married friend... hope to meet your wife and children someday... :)
