M

 

Today, a dear, dear friend flies out to another country to settle there for a good long while. There are just some people whom you meet during your lifetime that affects you and moves you in a way you cannot explain. I am truly sorry that she will be leaving the islands, and I’m fighting back tears as I write this. But as they say, as with all true friends, neither distance nor time can faze your bond — especially if you have Facebook.

  

I met M almost 4 years ago, and I can’t really say how we became friends. Totally different backgrounds, different families, different upbringing (although we agree we both have iron-fisted moms). She doesn’t know how to speak Filipino, I don’t know a word of German except maybe Oktoberfest and beer.

  

But we are friends, and she sets me straight (I need a lot of straightening out if you haven’t noticed), we listen to each other rant (apparently where she’s from that’s actually kind of an accepted pastime… it even has a name, I just can’t pronounce it), we help each other, she donated her personal fridge to me when I moved into my tiny, rat-hole apartment, we shop, we eat and we drink… all the usual girl-friend things you do. 

 

 

I know it’s really easy to keep in touch nowadays, and I am thankful we live in an age when you can talk to people miles and miles away with a single click of a button. But I will miss M, and her scowl (if you’re reading this Babe, you know you have “the scowl”…) and her weird awkward poses when she gets a little too animated telling her stories, and how she and F-dude manage to lock lips a little too close to me whenever we’re all together, and how she cares about her friends, and her kindness to everyone around her (except to those who messes with her friends)…

 

Next time I see her would probably be next year when C and I go visit them. It should be another adventure with her. I wrote this blog entirely in English because she was hinting the other day that she would read and understand from context most of the entries since it’s mostly in Tagalog. So this is sort of my “safe trip” present to you, babe. For all the good times, and the crazy times and the down-right awful times that we were there for each other… Love you M!

 

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. 

Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts,

and we are never, ever the same.” 

~Flavia Weedn, Forever

 

(pics from google)