I met up with Bimbo, a close close friend back in high school. It's been three years since we last saw each other so we were really excited to meet up even if it would mean catching up with each other's multi-episode life all crammed in an hour, the 12-1 lunch time.
The first few minutes after 30 seconds of "i missed you a lot" and "so happy to see you" exchanges were all awkward. No no no, we never had a thing with each other before. The awkwardness, I guess, was out of the realization that we missed so much of the happenings in each others' lives. Let me clarify my self, within those three years we actually have seen each other but those were on very special occasions like my wedding, his wedding, my daughter's christening, his daughter's christening. We literally just saw each other but never got the chance to talk.
Bimbo is a friend who'd never forget the value of friendship despite separation or lack of time. He's always the first one to greet me a happy bday every year. Even if we live totally separate lives he never forgets my birthday.
"What? You mean you realized you really are into women?", was what he said, to my surprise, when I started on the separation and marriage-falling-apart story which has been really mechanical to tell nowadays.
I laughed so hard. I was not laughing at the very humor of it, actually. I was just so happy with the fact that he really didn't forget what we have shared before. Important backgrounder: we shared one girl before. Oh no, not shared, I was with her first until he stole her from me. Hehe. I've forgiven, really. (oops, he didn't know I hid grudges) Seriously, it felt good to know that he still kept the memories and that he's still that open to me and that he can ask me anything without blinking an eye(sensitive or not).
We went on sharing each other's experiences. Believe me the updating can be so emotional but we managed to go over it casually. We talked about marital problems, the joy of having a child and the infinite expenses that go with it, what we have heard about people we know, how now that we look at ourselves objectively we see two anti-social workaholics -- personalities that we never imagined we would and could be 7-8 years back.
We were just highschoolers joggling school, social life and a bulk of hobbies (billiards, basketball, collectibles, bullying, smoking, drinking, malling, and oh dear, cutting classes). We were just enjoying life and were complicating our boring lives. Now we're busy simplifying our complicated lives.
I showed him some of Maya's photos which I have copies of inside all my bags (talk about being a girlscout mom, haha). He said she looks just like me. "Buti hindi nagmana sa ama", commented the never-changing laitero. Then he showed me Jill's, his daughter. Funny enough, Jill looks exactly like him, only with longer hair!
He laughed his heart out looking at us. He remembered how we used to exchange homeworks, computations in trigo, and even test papers. And now we exchange pictures of our children. I agree with him perfectly. We didn't know we would end up the way we are now barely 8 years after high school. Who would've even thought he, the heartthrob Bimbo, would come to marry one possessive woman and manage to stick with her when he spent most of his adolescent years collecting girlfriends? (I'm proud of you, Bo, for changing and for being so loyal to your wife) And who would've thought that I, the one-of-the-boys ultra independent Avie, would be impregnated before college graduation and now become a "separada"? Who would've thought we would be missing three years of each others' lives when one classmate (by the name of Sheila Romano, I guess) once tagged us with matching flowing tears and raging eyes The Partners in Crime. We still are partners now, but not in any crime. We partner in the belief that through everything that happened to us, we have no reason to be ashamed or feel demeaned or embarrased.
No one ever imagined we would be low profile citizens (I mean, so much away from troubles and popularity grievances). No one, not even me or him. But that's how life gets so exciting, isn't it? We are not stereotypes.
We realized how time flies and that we can never spent that much time together now like we used to because we now have new sets of priorities. He recalled that I was the one who wrote his profile for our high school yearbook and that how his wife never believed it was him who wrote it and that everytime he reminds her it was me who did the wife never believes I was never one of her girls.
It was just an hour of double-time exchanges of stories hurriedly recalled. But it was more than enough to remind me and to assure me that Bimbo is really my friend.
We can't be cheesy, we refuse to. But I know he knew what my smiles and cursing meant. It was my way of saying 'thank you'. And I also know he knew that I know the very gesture of having lunch with me is a huge show of support now that I am facing much bigger challenges.
Funny how time flies. But like a river, there's nothing we could do to keep the water from flowing. I felt too humiliated to even think of telling him but, really, I love Bimbo and I love him even more for the fact that time never cuts through the real friendship we have built 8 years ago as the naughty highschoolers who thought life can be too easy.
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