ON KEEPING AND TREASURING FRIENDSHIPS FOR LIFE
Friends are some of the most important people in this world. And I bet almost everyone on planet earth has this someone they consider as best friends for life. Either this person has been in our lives for a certain period of time and had been there with us through thick and thin, best friends are the people we love, cherish and keep.
As for me, I’m thankful enough to have been blessed with a best friend whom I treasure all my life. I met her way back in my College days. She was my classmate and from the very first day we met, we knew we’d clicked. We love sharing squid balls and mango shake after classes. I sometimes borrow money from her whenever my weekly allowance were already drained just middle of the week. 
We okray some mahaderas back in school together. She is the number one critique of my unpredictable personality. She gives me the most frank and direct to the point advices whenever Hubby and I have petty or serious Qs. She is a shoulder to cry on, a sister to confide with, and someone that I depend to, and from the littlest up to the more important things in my life, she knows almost everything.
But just like any another relationship, keeping and treasuring a friendship is something that is constantly worked on. I have to say so myself because for over four years now since my best friend settled in the province for good with her family, we experienced that it doesn’t come easy especially that we are physically far from each other which made us miss each other really bad. I’ve often convince her (a million times, I think) to already get “high-tech”, so we can get in touch conveniently. But ayayay, you wouldn’t believe this, but she’s someone who is not used to embracing technology really seriously even as I often say she should be, with the changing times. She has no Friendster, no Blog (and she’s quite surprise the day I told her I have an online diary that’s been read publicly), not even a Yahoo mail account. Great, diba?
Anyway, technology-deprived and what-have-yous, it didn’t hinder us from keeping in touch regularly. Communication was the primary key and at the very least, we have mobile phones and texting and calling cards to thank for, because we get to call each other almost three times a day, seven days a week. I remember one time I was on an inter-country assignment, and my best friend really need to confide with me a major and urgent “something” that she and her Hubby was having, we were able to sit down and talk over the phone in long minutes, or hours, if I may say so. My thanks to several calling cards I purchased from GetMeCallingCards.com, one of the largest retailers of phone cards from all major vendors that allows customers to call from 153 countries around the world. In my case, since I was calling then from the United States to the Philippines, Philippine calling cards cost me just around 5.4 cents per minute. That sure saved me big bucks.
Sometimes, whenever time and circumstances permit it, we visit each other’s place once in a while. And such was what happened last Thursday. Finally, my best friend, after being captured by attending to family matters at home and us playing the waiting game for over a month, my best friend for life was in town together with her adorable three-year old little girl Sam. And I bet you already know what happened next? We’ve had the greatest times of our lives going here and there just like the way we used to.
Well, we’ve initially planned to go to Subic last month and spend some two or three days there, but since her schedule of arrival in Manila changed, so thus the change in our plans (errr, we didn’t really plan for whatsoever because her sked was really crazy). Anyway, we opted not go anywhere out-of-town, just spontaneous pasyals here and there (which goes to explain why I am almost invisible online these past few days).
Anyhow, here’s a quick run down on the things we’ve been up to and the places we’ve been to since she and daughter Sam came. I’ll update the post to include the other photos from the camphone of our friends.
08 May - Noemi and Sam was home evening of Thursday. Wet and all exhausted hurdling through the heavy downpour that night, they were home safe, thankfully. And as expected, after the kids’ had slept, we had our marathon sessions of chickahan till 3AM the next day. Talks on our Hubbies, the kids, Lobo and Dyesebel, name it, we’ve chatted about it.
09 May - Accompanied Noemi in some of her suppliers in Manila to book orders for her wine and liquor business back at home. After office hours, we met Dumai and Weng, two of our closest friends in Malate. We had the best hours chitchatting over a sumptuous shabu-shabu dinner at Tong Yang in Adriatico Place and drain ourselves in tons of caffeine at a coffee shop (forgot the name) also in Malate. I forgot to bring my trusty camera that night so we’ve had no decent photos to keep except for some photos captured by camphones. Save that for my being overly excited.
10 May - Groggy and still nursing a hangover of the girls’ night out (heehee, we got home past 3AM already, great isn’t it?), we decided to stay at home and rest. I’ve initially booked a good seat for us at UCC Café in SM Mall of Asia for the Pyrolympics but hey, nothing compares to curling up in the sofa and bumming and chatting around as if there’s no tomorrow. We spent the entire day bonding with the kids—her Sam and my Nico. And guess what? Seeing these kids play made me realized Hubby and I should fast track Baby No. 2 once and for all. These kids bonding only went to show the joys of having two kids, or more, even.
11 May - It’s Mother’s Day alright (the day supposedly Moms are pampered) but we opted not to give in to self-serving treats and brought the kids to Avilon Zoo instead. Too bad our cameras went low batt halfway, or was it not even halfway of the trip (see, that’s how excited we were, we forgot to charge the cameras before hand, tsk!) but at least we get to keep some souvenir photos.
12 May - We invited Weng and Dumai to sleep over the house, though only Weng made it. Dumai missed it because she attended to her online classes with her Korean students. Again, uber chickahan to the max till the next morning.
13 May - I went to work and Noemi was left home. Little did I know, the endless chickahans we’ve had, once and for all, convinced her to acquaint herself with technology. And whatdayouknow, the night I was home, I was surprised to see two huge boxes she brought from the Mall. Haha! It’s a laptop that comes with a 4-in-one printer package. We tinkered it to death and as of late, we’ve had a Yahoo Mail and a Friendster account opened for her finally! The next thing, I’ll teach her to use Yahoo Messenger so that we can chat.
She’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, and just as I am writing this now makes me want to stop time, if only to spend a few more days with her. Hmm, mushy mushy of me, but for sure it will be one dreaded day tomorrow because I will really miss her. Oh well, maybe I should just think of happy thoughts and put in mind that in a month or two, we will get to see each other again.
14 responses so far
Congrats, congrats… I am so happy for you. Hang in there. I’m sure you’ll...
Love how the embedded links are put
My bff for life is in the USA, and yes, she is a technophobe and she works crazy hours, having two jobs. I wonder why since she is single and all.
Love how you spent so many days together. Pretty soon, Noemi would be blogging
hi Teacher Julie.
if I may say so, I think your BFF is one those people who are gifted with single-blessedness. haha, tama ba? or baka naman she’s like Weng, a close friend of ours that I mentioned in this post. well, her reasons for being single and all up to this time–she’s waiting for the perfect sperm/gene for her soon-to-be offspring. hahaha!
i really hope my BFF will learn the ropes of going high tech. maganda yung nabili nyang laptop at sabi ko nga, pag-uwi nya today, first thing na gawin nya is magpakabit ng Internet connection.
thanks for the kind words on the link. that’s precisely because the point you said about being truthful in paid posting stuck in my head. idol kasi kita!
Me too, I have a bff that I met in college. I have one too from high school pero mas close ako dun sa college bff ko. And guess what, baklush sya. Sabi nga nya sa akin, malamang jokla ako in a previous life kasi. I know what you mean about nurturing tresured friendships. I guess when you get caught up in the day to day family stuff, friendships have to take a backseat. But it’s so nice to know that despite the distance (time and location), a simple phone call can instantly bridge that.
Off topic, bakit kaya ayaw mag-work sa akin ang keywords?
Konkong622s last blog post..Spot.ph Trinoma Food Tour (Part Deux)
hi Cookie. it really feels good to have a BFF right? baklush or whatever planet they’re from, what matters is the way you help and support each other no matter how important or less important things are. of course, family comes first of everything. BFFs are not supposed to compete for attention with family but rather complement us too, simply because we treat them as family also.
re: keywords, for what paid blog gig was it not working? I haven’t gotten around others, just PPP pa lang and so far for the 3 post opportunities I grabbed, for as long as the link to the site is working, they’ll approve your post. there are instructions din yata how to go about writing the post, preferably positive or neutral, but what works for me is just to write posts the way I used to, yung bang hindi naman nagbago ang tack/approach for writing, then inserting the post opportunity and the link comes so naturally.
haha, may sense ba mga pinagsasabi ko? dapat aside from the picnic, mag coffee session tayo para dito lang. 
hi feng, like you, i also have a best friend who is now based in dubai. at first, she was totally un-savvy…no friendster, no email account. i was the one who created the accounts for her. ayun, she was hooked and i’m just happy coz i get updated about her life in dubai thru her emails and friendster updates. in our life, i guess there’s really one person who we can consider our best friend for life and despite the distance or no matter how long you’ve been apart, the moment you see each other again nothing has ever change and the chikahan never ends.
mhalous last blog post..Work Dress Code
hi Mhalou. LOL on the hooked on Friendster! haha! your BFF must have thanked you endlessly for that! Friendster may seem jologs to some, but for us who loves to be updated what’s happening in our friendsters’ lives, that social site is very very much a hit!
I agree, in our lives there comes a person that we treasure so much. so much, that we treat them as our family too even though they’re not totally blood-related.
and yes, the chickahans never ever ends. as a matter of fact, right now, am so groggy for the last few days simply because we sleep at around 3AM due to hours of chitchatting. 
Hi Feng!
Ay, kainggit, you got to spend lots of time with your bff… Teach her how to blog!
My bff (as in we’ve been friends since age 7!) now lives in Japan with her family. Nakakamiss nga eh. Sometimes we Skype for hours. But it’s been a long while since the last one.
5.4cents/minute? what call card yan? macheck nga… Uy, galing mo mag embed ha. hehe.
hi Chats.
BFF since age 7? woooohooo, congrats! I’m pretty sure you have so many good memories treasured. and thank goodness for technology talaga ano, Skype lang ang katapat and you’re connected.
re: the embedded link, haha, oo 5 cents lang, and good news, they have call cards on sale now. may nakita pa nga akong 4 cents lang. (hanep ba sa promo?)
re: teach her how to Blog—haha! alam mo bang nag rereklamo na nga sya kasi ang bilis bilis ko daw mag explain about blogging and how to create one. right now, she’s just hooked with adding friends on Friendster. hopefully, later on, she’ll be encouraged to blog too.
i have friends all over the world some just rediscovered because of the technology - fun to keep in touch ano kahit na malayo na at kahit na gaano katagal pa. pero sempre mas masaya if you get to do girl talks and shopping together
i even have good friends since kindergarten days and i meet with them everytime i go back to manila.
raqgolds last blog post..Because I craved both Thai food and asparagus
hi Raq! look at what technology brought to our lives talaga anoh? amazing! I think the best part of the connectivity that we enjoy now is that mas nagiging exciting lalo na makita ang mga friends natin all in flesh kasi may anticipation ka na what to expect kasi may communication na kayo even way ahead.
It’s great that you were able to spend quality time with your friends. It looks like you took advantage of each day you were together. I’m sure you enjoyed catching up with each other’s lives.
How nice that your friend bought a laptop. Now you can communicate more often.
Rach (Heart of Rachel)s last blog post..Aloha Friday #28
hi Rach! we really had a grand time. and as of now, medyo may hangover pa nga ako. I haven’t had a decent sleep for the past week dahil sa mga endless chitchats namin. haha! bawi siguro ako this coming weekend.
oh, my bestfriends are of course far from me, but they’re technology equipped alright so we manage to keep up. miss those hanging out with friends till the morning.
great that you finally encouraged her to get acquaintance with yahoo and friendster hehe.. that would be the start
analyses last blog post..Italian Getaway
hi Analyse! bakit nga kaya ganun ano? kung sino pa yung BFF mo, yun pa malayo sa yo? well, I guess, ganyan lang talaga. at least, equipped kayo pareho with the new technology, communication is very much present.
yup, pa friendster friendster na nga lang sya ngayon eh. hehe. kahapon, nagpapaturo naman sa YM. hehe.