Saturday, December 26, 2009

Crossroads

Just this afternoon, I was able to unearth my stash of pictures and letters from friends way back in high school. I never gave it much thought like it was just another trip back through memory lane seeing how ugly each of us where and how we tend to write in mushy, drawing-a-flower-right-next-to-your-name kind of way. Back when the days where most Filipinos never even had an idea what the internet was…and yeah there were no cell phones yet. No SMART no GLOBE…only JAZZ Page and Pocketbell…wait, no, that was college. Okay! PLDT with nagging party lines.

I was planning to read through each letter and note that I had received, trying to remember all the happy memories that I could during those days. The letters I uncovered were about our catholic recollection, simple notes to self, a few hello notes from friends, dedications at the back of old high school photos and a few goodbye notes from close school mates that were pretty sure they were not going to be able to get in touch ever again because their families are moving out of the country or moving so far that it would make it impossible….that was before Facebook.

I was just browsing through the pile but when I chanced upon one letter way back March 1995, I had to stop searching. This was a letter from a dear friend of mine which was our Valedictorian. This was given to me days before our graduation and this was a very significant letter because it was the culmination of what was basically how we experienced our high school days and how differently we lived our lives until we were united with one common goal. During our sophomore years, she was the bright girl I was the all around guy. Fate will deal a cheap shot and pair us up as tease favorites. So we ended up not really talking to each other anymore she was so annoyed that her friends would cleverly lead every conversation back to the two of us. I thought she was angry at me and knowing that she is the cream of the crop, a valedictorian to-be, I just stayed out of her way. She studied her way to the top of the student council to become president and I crawled, groaned and scarred my way to the top of the schools military training program. That “minding my own business” status continued until the summer before we became seniors. When the top 10 incoming seniors were required to do military training before the school year starts. Once again, we were put in the same melting pot. …AWKWARD. We never spoken to each other in like 2 years and now we need to work with each other. That was when I learned the concept of maturity. When you got to do what you have to do then do it right no matter the situation maybe. We were both able to set aside the sophomore thing and we worked together for the whole school year. Ironically, we became good friends afterwards. She wrote that it was a shame that we wasted those years trying to avoid each other instead of being friends, but was also happy that we were able to make up for lost time during senior years. I agree with her on that. It was a very, very long letter that had everything since sophomore years ‘till graduation expectations. Imagine stationery as big as 8.5 x 13 paper with small hand writing not to mention that she wrote stuff on both sides…and there were four pages of it. As with everything else, it would come to an end as we both graduated. Her family moved to Laguna as she studied to be a vet. Nowadays everyone could get connected, and through the magic of email, we were able to communicate once in a while and do some catching up though we never had the chance to see each other face to face since we graduated. She’s now a great veterinarian.


I guess life really has its own way of solving issues for us. No matter how hard we avoid or not talk about it. It deals cheap shots on all levels, whether it be friendship, business relations, family or love. Makes us want to think, “why me? why now?” because it’s all quite unfair. Eventually after some time, we get to look back and say “Oh, so that’s why ….”

May it be because it was not really meant for you, or maybe you were just being taught something as a requirement for getting a big thing? Just checking if you are mature enough to receive something that you would deserve and enjoy? Or maybe, just separating two very different people so that they could live and grow the way they’re supposed to be.


Eventually, the world would make a path where you could meet again, let you decide on your own if you would share a common road, or smile at each other and take separate ways…then wave goodbye carrying all the good memories you had before you saw the first crossroad.

Life is good…when you know where to look. (I suggest on the positive side)

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