BFF

I remember a conversation I had with Luz about how interesting it would be to have a "bestfriend" again in our age - the going-through-quarter-life-crisis mid-twenties. Not just any bestfriend, but the kind you used to have in pre-school or grade school, whom you always spent every free moment with, whome you treat with a certain possessiveness that is inherent to kids. "We're bestfriends, you can't take us away from each other." You know, BFF - best friends (freaking) forever.

The thought has sparked our curiosity because I think now that we're trying to be independent, we've forgotten how it was to be reliant and to be relied upon. Although we do have close friends of our own, some we even consider our best friends - I don't think we can ever recapture the innocence of unguarded and vulnerable friendships.

Jenn is my grade school best friend. We became friends in the first grade where we belonged to the same class. Both of us were six years old, a year younger than most of our batch mates. We sat together, ate together, brushed our teeth together, played together, studied together. We were almost inseparable. Her mom was our teacher and she was very nice to me and treated me like a daughter, too. I transferred school just before we started high school but Jenn and I remained friends.

We used to exchange letters. Yes, letters: stamps, envelopes, stationery. Eventually, we progressed to emails, then text messages and occassional phone calls, and just very recently, through Friendster. Through intermittent but continuous communication, we were able to keep in touch and be updated with each others' lives. I was affected when I found out Jenn's dad died when we were in high school, and more devastated when her mom also passed away when we were in college. Now that we're both members of the workforce, we share our sporadic discontent for the routine of our jobs.

From posted pictures in her profile, I got to see how she looks like now. She mostly hasn't changed. She also posted pictures of her parents and I felt like my heart was being wrenched out when I read her caption, "My mother, the greatest woman I've ever met and will ever meet." I miss her with a certain suddenness now. We've been friends for twenty years. And that's something you don't come across with often.

I realize something about friendships. It's not about how often you are together or see each other. It's how much you learn from each other, how you become a better person because of each other. And that sounds cheesy as hell, but it's true. I'm guessing anyone would want to be remembered as a person who made his friends better people.

I think that would be a good epitaph. (I've been thinking of a good epitaph for myself, by the way. Morbid, I know.)