Friendships & Best Friends

Ina



I’ve known Ina since we were in senior prep. I was 6 and she was 5 (I was born mid-‘82 and she was born early ’83, hence we were in the same year). It’s been so long ago, I don’t even remember how we met but we were classmates then, back-mates too. Usually teachers have this habit of changing the seating arrangement of the class every quarter or every semester, but for some weird reason, my memories of senior prep is that of me sitting near the windows, in front, with Sieg (Go) beside me, Ina behind me, and Kris (Zara) beside Ina. Actually, I think that was our seating arrangement the entire year? Anyway, we were notorious in class. Why? We were always noisy, so noisy that our teacher (what’s her name again, Inz?) was always threatening to punish us or kick us out of the classroom or something, but we usually behaved after a couple of reminders. But it was at the tender innocent age of 6 that I experienced, for the first and last time in my life, getting kicked out of a classroom.

We were noisier than usual that day, I don’t even remember why, but our teacher was totally probably pissed. I don’t remember what Sieg and Kris were doing or talking about or how they related with what Ina and I were talking about, but Ina and I were discussing stationeries. Hers. And, anyway, our teacher was pissed and was saying that we should behave ourselves so we did. But then as I sat properly and faced front and stuff, I noticed that I still had Ina’s stationery with me. So I watched our teacher warily, waited until she had her back turned, and quickly turned around to return Ina’s statio back to her. When I whirled back front, I was greeted by my teacher’s pissed face and, “Kaye! Sieg! Step out of the room right now!!” “But – but – “ “NOW!!” Sieg and I meekly went out (Sieg got included coz when I turned around, he also turned around, curious). Imagine that. I got kicked out and I wasn’t even talking. And Ina and Kris remained in the room when they were the other half. So not fair.

(By the way, I still have those stationeries that were the cause of it all LOL Ina gave them to me)

Anyway, I stood outside the front door while Sieg stood outside the back door. Some kids would probably cry at being punished. Sieg and I just sorta grinned at each other and even talked occasionally, making sure that our voices wouldn’t carry inside the classroom.

Grade 1-4 saw Ina and me in separate classes so those were the Ina-less years. We became classmates again in Grade 5 (and again grade 7) and used that 1 year to recap every single thing that happened to us in the previous 4 years. And ever since, we’ve been friends. I like our friendship, because even if there were times when we’d be months since the last time we talked or wrote to each other, whenever we’d meet up again it was like nothing changed and we were still as close as before.

She and her family migrated to the States summer of our junior year (that is, summer between 3rd and 4th year of high school). She told her friends she was leaving during our finals. When I asked when they were leaving, she said she didn’t know because her parents didn’t want to tell her and her brothers else they “might get excited”. I knew I was going to miss her but since e-mails, phones and snail mails made this world less big, I knew we’d still manage to keep our friendship alive. On our last day of finals, I was hanging out in Gate 2 when I saw Ina’s mom. We exchanged a few pleasantries and I mentioned Ina saying that they were leaving. Her mom voluntarily told me when they were leaving, but made me promise not to tell Ina. I kept that promise but told Ina that her mom told me when they were leaving when I met up with her again in the fourth floor, right before her and some of her friends were going out for a gimmik. That was near the end of March, 1999 and that was the last time I saw her.

Middle of September 2005, I email Ina… but she’s busy and I needed to plan already, so I called her:
ME: Hey, Inz, how are you?
INA: I’m fine, fine. You?
ME: Great. Listen, I know it’s late there, did I wake you?
INA: Oh, no, I’m still up. You know, I’ve been dreaming about you lately.
ME: Really? Cool.
INA: It’s happened for 3 consecutive nights already.
ME: What happen?
INA: (tells me all 3 dreams, then) I was just telling Chris that I was wondering how you were and if you were all right.
ME: Well, I’m going to the States.
INA: WHAT! OH MY GOD! WHEN?!
ME: (laughs)

So, after 6 years and 7 months, I was finally going to see Ina again. Her mom later told me that, since the time I told her I was coming for a visit, she’s been telling everyone everyday, “Kaye’s coming!” Methinks her family got tired of me even before I arrived LOL especially since I was the cause of the massive clean-up and organization of their entire home hahahaha

I arrived at the ungodly hour of 730 or something in JFK airport in NYC and waited about 10 minutes for Ina. I mean, it was my first time in that particular place and I didn’t know the layout of the airport, plus my flight was a bit early. I tried calling Ina but her cell was off or something and I hate leaving voice mail. Besides, I figured that by the time Ina would listen to her voice mail, we’d be together already.

All the way to the States, I wondered how I’d react when I first saw her. Would I cry? Would I blubber? Would we talk a hundred miles a minute? And, true to my occasional paranoid nature, I worried that we might not have anything to say to each other, that we might have those uncomfortable silences. I’d always assure myself that, hey, this was Ina, I’ve known her forever and we never had those ‘uncomfortable’ things.

I was waiting in the arrivals area, looking around, excited and yet slightly tired and then, over on yonder, I see two sets of legs going down steps (the arrival area was kind of a basement/lower-ground set-up… gets?) and I just knew that one of those belonged to Ina. Weirdly, the first person I recognized was Tita Maricar and when I looked at the person next to her (Btw, Inz, why were you guys running?), grinning widely, as I had my first face-to-face look at Ina. I saw them looking around and I waved my arm once and Ina answers with a shriek heard in the entire arrivals area (it was a small place and my flight was the only one who arrived at that hour), “Kaye!” “Ina!” I replied in kind, we were both laughing as we hugged. And just hugging her, I knew… we’d have a blast and things would be great.

On the way to their home, talking to them, I just felt like I never left. I know the right words to use there would be “I felt that they never left” but in reality, I felt like I lived there coz they lived there and they just felt so comfortable there. Did that make sense? It wasn’t like we’ve never seen each other in 6 years, it wasn’t like this is the first time I’m seeing how they live their life. It was like… nothing changed. And that was just one of the nicest feeling of contentment I’ve ever had. Even though my brain kept repeating “can’t believe I’m finally here, can’t believe I’m seeing Ina again after so long”, it was also like… it was nothing. It was normal. I guess that’s the best way of saying it.

There was one moment though, when her mom was telling me that Ina made everyone help out in cleaning their entire house, her mom was saying that Ina didn’t really need to do all that since “Kaye’s family” and that just touched me. It just struck me. I mean, I’ve always considered Inz’s family as my own even though I can’t really differentiate Carlo from Mikey when they were kids (or even in pictures before I arrived) and I’ve only met her dad a grand total of… one time. It was just that I knew them through Ina and since her mom was the one who always picked them up from school, I knew her mom ever since and Ina and I are just kinda that close that we consider each other's family as our own. But for her (Tita) to think that… I was just flattered and touched. But, yeah, I had told Ina even before not to (since she was all “I have to clean the apartment”), but Ina defended her actions by saying, “our apartment’s really messy”. I always reply that it doesn’t matter, but I can see where she’s coming from LOL I mean, if a friend who’s ‘family’ comes to visit me, I’d sure as heck want to present her (or him) with a clean place to live in LOL

So there we were, together again :)

When I left, we cried. I don’t even know why LOL I mean, even before I stepped on the plane to go to the States, I always wondered how it’d be when we first see each other and when I’d leave. And since we didn’t cry when we first saw each other, I figured we wouldn’t cry when I would leave. I figured it was because that, even though I’m physically not there and she’s not here, we’re still together (and not in the gay sense). Like, in a way, we didn’t really separate. I still know her, know what happens in her life, and vice versa. The little details might escape our emails, but it doesn’t change that I know she’s there and she’s in my life and vice versa.

I think something that Ina’s friend said basically captures it. Ina was telling her friend/s (I forget who… hee) about me and how long we’ve been friends and how we’ve kept in touch and even grown closer (if that’s possible) when she left. And this guy friend of hers goes, “Now that’s what I call friendship!”

So we cried when I left LOL and we were hugging and crying and all that. The typical airport good-bye that I see and read about LOL

I miss her. Waiting for the plane, I read the card and checked out the book she gave me and got all weepy again, missing her. I suppose I’ll always miss her.

Liza



Growing up in one batch that has been together (just shuffled and distributed to 6 [or more, during our later years] sections) ever since we were all 5 (or 4, for some) years old in junior prep, I’ve always known of Liza (well maybe not in prep, but certainly in grade school). When we were in grade school, she was always known as “anak ni Mrs. Bukis”; her mom was the librarian of the grade school library – a place I didn’t really go to unless we had classes there for one reason or another.

We were classmates in 3rd grade, but our friendship (as it is now) officially started when Jamila ‘introduced' us in first year HS. Immediately, we clicked. Books, boys, stories, you name it, we’ve talked about it. We’re both into esoteric arts, fortune telling, dream interpretation, etc. We share our dreams with each other (we both usually have vivid memories of what we dreamt at night); we made up worlds, words, phrases, slang, codes. We created fantasies. We wrote novels… well, actually, we wrote letters but they were 40 to 100+ pages long so people always called them ‘novels’. I knew and recognize all her handwritings and she knows and recognizes all the fonts of my computer (LMAO I dislike handwriting, especially for long amounts of time, even then; besides, I type faster than I write while she’s the opposite).

My usual day in school during my first year would start by hanging out with Lee, Trish, and Jam in the morning and during break times. Recess and lunch we’d all separate (except for Trish and Jam who were members of the same barkada) while we all went to our respective meal-time barkadas. After classes were spent in the canteen (we were both hungry) and then, in Umabob – Lee’s mom drove Lee and her sister, Candy, to school every day in a red/maroon Honda civic with plate number UMA 808, which Lee and I promptly dubbed “Umabob”. She’d be in the driver’s seat, I’d be in the passenger side, the engine would be on and the aircon and radio would be blasting and we’d just yak up a storm until one of us had to leave. When I arrived home, we’d eat some… and then the phone conversations would begin. I was usually on the phone with Karen (another best friend) from about 6-7 or 8 and then on the phone with Lee from 8 until 9 or 10. Or even later LOL and even then, we still had plenty to write about in our letters, so much that every single person we knew who saw us reading letters always asked us “what do you talk about?” (since they knew we also talked in the phone).

Karen and I usually talked every day, every afternoon, but Lee and I would sometimes skip days. Lee and I were classmates our entire high school life, except for second year, so my routine didn’t really vary much. Except that Umabob got switched for Starex some time third or fourth year, I believe.

I’ve gone to her house, met her sister, met her family, shared her food, insisted on being the person who’d get the water whenever we’d be eating at her house coz I adored their water dispenser – I called it the “glug glug” since I get all happy when I hear the sound the bubbles make). I’ve used her internet, enjoyed watching movies in their big-screen TV, borrowed her books, read her magazines, drummed her drums (until now, every time I hear “One Sweet Day”, “Sway”, and “Larger Than Life”, I remember her) and everything in between. We were both MASSIVELY huge stalker-like BIG fans of Backstreet Boys. I was married to Nick, she was married to Kevin, and Candy was married to Brian. Howie and AJ were extras LOL

We were close. We were even a bit more than close – we called ourselves psychic twin sisters. Maybe it was because we were both into the supernatural, but sometimes we’d get twinges in our intuition that would correspond to the other. Sometimes, we’d do or say things at a certain moment at the exact same time and exact same way without even talking about it or without any precipitating factors. We’d dream of each other.

During summer breaks, we’d hang out (I’d go over to their house, she [and sometimes, her sister] would go over mine). I love all their pets and their couch in their room and she loves the French fries in my house LOL she was the person I’ve talked longest on the phone with – from the moment I woke up until waaaaay late at night right before we went to bed. We just hung up to bathe and eat. And right after doing those, we called each other up again. That’s a record LOL We were also suki of the local postal service. She lived, maybe, 20 or 30 minutes away, was just a phone call away and yet we continued our letter writing during summer, using the postal service to send our letters. We found out it only took one day for our letters to travel and always knew when the postal service was late. I think the longest it was late was about 3 days, was it, Lee? I forget. Hee. Occasionally, we emailed. Sometimes, we chatted. Looking back, we did talk a lot, didn’t we, Lee? LMAO

I have always had a thing for giving nicknames to some people, especially those close to me. Ina became Inz and Liza became Lee (and Karen became Kar). Most people would hear that and think that it was derived as a shortcut from her name (“lee-zah”) but in reality, there’s a story behind that. See, she dug Lee someone from some boy group (Code Red, diba?) and since I couldn’t use the names of any of her other guys, I said that I would call her “Lee” from the guy Lee in Code Red so it won’t be too obvious and since we were both sure people would think I called her that coz of her name. Before that, I (and others) usually called her “Liza” or “Liz” or “Pol” (another long story). After me, I think a lot of people ended up calling her “Lee” too :p heheh

We’ve been through a lot – good times and bad times, and always our friendship has remained and grown stronger. We had a misunderstanding once, which we resolved and she was always there for me when I needed her (and vice versa). I always knew she was just a phone call or text away. During my first year in college, I was hanging out with my then-boyf on my birthday and Lee texts me, “sorry I can’t be there for your party”. I reply, “what party?” LMAO apparently, Karen had planned a surprise party and invited our friends and Mark was in on it and was keeping me away from our dorm while Karen fixed it up and get everyone to go there and Lee totally blew the secret LMAO

She left about December 2002 or January 2003 (sorry, Lee, I forgot…) and I went to the airport to say good bye to her. We cried a bit then. We continued our emails and snail mails but it sort of decreased when 2004 went by and we both became busier. I emailed her that I was coming by and could we meet up in Vegas (I was only in the states for a short while so I had to cram everything in). I was flattered and touched as hell that Lee (with boyf and sis and sis’ boyf) drove all the way to Vegas so we can hang. Man alive, Lee, you’ll never know how much that means to me :)

We got to hang for one day. From 10 am until about 230 pm. I underwent that whole paranoia thing again (what can I say? I can be paranoid and a worry-wart) but I knew things would be fine. And it was. Our hanging out was soooo bitin but I guess it was enough too. I finally got to meet her man and see Candy again, and that was nice. We recapped things we missed in the time that we weren’t able to talk much and it was like nothing changed (although there were still kwentos in her life that I wanna know LOL).

Being with her, hanging out with her, I’ve missed her so much. When we had to separate, I hurt all over again. Looking at the things in her life, I realize that there was so much that I missed, you know? And that there were things in my life that I wanted to share with her but I couldn’t/can’t. I guess it was hard, since I was with her for so long, being with her on a daily basis and even being able to hang out with her often while in college that this distance between us kind of hurts somewhat. We were PTS (psychic twin sisters). She’s my PTS, my best bud, my dream-buddy, and all that. I’ve missed talking with her, hanging out with her, sharing our dreams, talking about everything under the sun, and I miss her loads.

She bought me a shirt, which I adore LMAO



If you’ll notice, it doesn’t say if I am or am not a virgin, although the way the words are written, the assumption is that I'm not. Anyway, I just thought it was a hysterical shirt. Of course, I’m definitely not wearing it out nor am I wearing it where my family can see it (I know my cousin [and sis-in-law?] reads my blog, but I’m sure they won’t tell. Riiiight? ;p) but it’s a nice house (actually, dorm) shirt.

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Man alive, I love those two girls of mine :) and I really miss them loads. A few hours and a few days just was not enough. can’t wait until I can visit them again. Or they can visit me. Whichever :) the important thing is, we’ll see each other again.