Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Someone we know from somewhere

“Oh, but I do miss them,” I smiled wryly. “It’s just that we had to move on.”

It wasn’t unusual for the conversation to shift back to what got left behind - for he would never believe it was gone. Everyone found new stories to tell, while he would recount the ones that everyone had already forgotten about. He’d manage to talk about the ones he chanced to bump into, associate it with some memory he had from high school, choke up and get quite sentimental about it. He’d believe things will come back, although of course, they never did.

In some ways, he reminded me of myself - although I’ve never quite admitted that until now. It was way back when I’d miss high school, the people who I used to hang out with a lot, I would talk about them the same way he would. As most stories would end, I found out they didn’t feel the same way. People found new lives, and more importantly, new friends. They never came online anymore, for one, or never texted unless it was the generic greeting they would send everyone during the holidays. Sometimes, still, they didn’t even bother to greet you on Christmas or on your birthday, until after it’s one month too late.

We happened to bump into each other on the terminal before the plans finally broke down.

Hindi ka ba talaga pupunta sa reunion, Dex,” he implored as we entered España gate.

May pupuntahan talaga ako e. Next time?”

Hindi mo ba sila na-mi-miss,” he prodded after that, which I answered as matter-of-factly as I could.

It never pushed through for, well, people like me who had already moved on. The proposition had only received as much as eight confirmations out of the forty plus who were invited and no more. It was postponed to January, but that didn’t work out either. I would eventually find out that even the factions that would have skipped the main party, but would have otherwise held a party of their own, never did. It would only seem that relationships have only gotten that much more divisive over the years that even those who have sworn undying friendship, at least to each other, at some point or another, have already forgotten their vows because of shifting priorities.

Sometimes, people move on; and even when they haven’t yet, one can be safely assume that, eventually, at some point in time, they will. No one knows for sure just how long we’ll get to keep the people we have right now. What we know that it is always a choice. We scrap the things that don’t work, and stick to the ones that do. Eventually, we realize, as I’m sure he would too, that we have to move on as well. Hopefully though, amidst the musings, we’ll also learn to be thankful for the people who have transcended those boundaries and chose to stay.