more on old friends, lifetime friends

last saturday, i went out with a long-but-not-so-lost friend from way high school, my barakada of so-so years already. incidentally, her older brother married my older cousin. and you know how family is so much family here in the philippines-- that would make us unofficially relatives, maybe not by blood but by heart, by mind and by interest and friendship. it’s not the first time we met since our 4-year separation (us in bacolod, she in la union)—i met her once in december but only very briefly—but it’s the first time we can really talk, remind each other of our old selves and of old times, talk of yesteryears and of old friends, and of how life has outgrown us over the years.

*** tsk. tsk. ***

as they say, your friends change over the years especially when you live apart to different environments, different cultures, different sets of friends. i admit to have changed, or rather i shall call it in my own positive term—matured, over the years. but what keeps the friendship alive in spite of these changes in personalities, in beliefs and attitudes? what holds the friendship in spite of years living apart, in spite of having new circles of friends, in spite of spatial differences?

after some moments of reckoning, i realize that in friendships formed, it is the “YOU” whom they accept to be part of their lives in the first place. no other else but the plain yet real and true “YOU.” and so when you are layered through time and distance by character, by values, by a whole new personality, the innermost “YOU” will still reveal. the “YOU” who has been loved and accepted by your friends. yes, there maybe differences already, but are you to succumb the friendship over these differences? Are you to allow space to be a hindrance when you know you could always give your friend a call or message anytime? after all, it has always been a choice for you if you want to keep your friends for a lifetime. and if you are a true friend, you know very well the answer.