one foot in the door, the other in the window

it's day 3 of the new year. at the rate i'm going, i might be blogging everyday. consistently/hopefully. at the stroke of midnight too. but whatevs, so long as you have something to read, everyday and i have something to write, everyday.

i met an old friend today. she looked well. we exchanged a few pleasantries and then she left. before this, when we were young kids, we were so close we were inseparable. we did many things together. we went over to each others house every week. i knew her family and she knew my family. this probably went on for about 2-3 years. and then, i can't remember when but we saw less and less of each other till we never saw. maybe we were growing apart. maybe we were just not into the same things anymore. after all, nobody is ever the same. people change. and maybe that was just it, we changed. now, i barely know this person anymore. sure, she looks the same. but underneath that, below the surface is a stranger. i do wish things didn't turn out the way it did. who knows, we could still be the best of friends. but seeing as how things have turned out, it doesn't seem like we can really really reclaim what we had last time. they are now memories, stored in a shoe box placed in the hidden corners of my darkening past. it's becoming harder to find that box and the contents are fading leaving blurred images and traces of shadows, of fading ink on paper, a love letter of sorts to the lives and times of the good and the bad.

it is rather unfortunate that the people we meet in our lifetime don't necessarily stay with us throughout our life span. i'm sure i had a best friend in kindergarten and i'm positively sure i had great friends in my primary years but things happen and circumstances lead to separation. one thing was and is for sure. throughout my lifetime, i was NEVER alone. i always had friends around me. close friends at various times of my life. and till this very day, i still do.

i guess friends are like treasures. once you have them, you gotta keep them safe and locked up in a place where you'll never lose them. because once you lose them, they will be forever lost. friends need to be cherished. sure, they can be annoying and irritating and be total idiots at one point of time or another but hey, if they're annoying to you, you're annoying to them too. it's a mutual relationship. no hierarchy. no kings and queens.

with facebook, lost friends are easily found. but like every lost things, you lose a certain attachment to them. you suddenly feel you gotta make a huge effort to say hello on their facebook wall and then when they say hello in reply, you stop there not because you're rude but because suddenly, what once felt so effortless now takes brain space, space you don't necessarily have to spare, effort you don't really wanna take. because you start to think, what's the point? you're probably not gonna see this person in the flesh. ever. and you don't have the time anyways cause as it is, you don't even have the time to meet the friends that you do actually have. so why even bother? a hello on the facebook wall tells the other person that you acknowledge their presence. the presence they once had in your life and the ones you will have virtually/birthday wish on the wall every year. maybe a few light conversations and that will be the end of it fullstop

but then, there is always an exception or maybe THIS is the exception/whatever rocks your boat. i could be wrong and maybe i'll meet an old friend and when we meet unexpectedly, we'll immediately fall back into our old rhythm and it will be as if we never parted. yes, there is that exception.

there definitely is.

so treasure the friends you have and the ones you'll meet. don't let them be strangers after having an established relationship. from being strangers to friends to becoming strangers again, is really the most unfortunate thing that can and will happen. and maybe that's the way life is and that's the way we learn and grow but after all that is said and done, i take comfort in the fact that i had friends and will continue having them. they were part of my growing years and that i cannot take away. despite being locked up in an old shoe box with dust and many years eating away at the corners of the cover and the colours and words fading an old photograph, at least i know that it was there. that it was real and that it existed like the dinosaurs and the cavemens and the emperors and pharaohs and the men of sparta.

the history channel, ch. 555