Let's Talk

I miss you.

I miss our school days—when we still had much time to talk and see each other even when we were surviving on a student allowance.

Look at us now. We have the money but we don’t have the time anymore for even a small talk. We only get to know about each other’s life through our status on Facebook, which I barely visit nowadays. I think Twitter is becoming more popular but I don’t intend to be there—140 characters would not be enough to tell you what’s going on in my life. Besides, I want to be more personal with you. I don’t want some generic broadcast of my life to the world to be my means to reach you.

We email each other but our mails have become shorter and shorter. We’re both too busy nowadays. Our hugs have been reduced to asterisks and letters *hugs*. Do you know that a person needs to be hugged at least three times a day? How do we do that? *hugs* *hugs* *hugs*? We promise to write longer, we plan to write more but we have to fight even for the time to do so. When I decide to go back to school once again, I am afraid that whatever little time I have right now to write to you will be taken away.

Letters

In my to-do-list last weekend were three letters for three friends that had been waiting to be written. I finished writing the letters yesterday and have sent them out. (I have learned that I am not so good at face-to-face conversations especially the ones when I have to advise or reconcile with someone as I have the tendency to be brutally honest, so just let me write. At least I can edit my words and be gentler.)

I wrote mostly about humility and forgiveness, two areas I have always struggled with, especially forgiveness. I don’t forgive easily. I give in to anger and say hurtful words and think thoughts I would rather not talk about because I am not proud of them. But recent, or let’s say, two events that had transpired in the past two years of my life taught me just about these two things—humility and forgiveness, underscore on forgiveness. I have learned that I just have to decide to forgive, not because of the other person but because it is the right thing to do. I have to choose to forgive because not doing so spells defeat on my part. The other person’s world will not stop because I haven’t forgiven him but I would be stuck with the hatred in my heart. That’s tragic. I would have lingering anger while the other would be celebrating life, such a loser!

Late last year, over pasta and pizza, I told a friend how I had asked myself one time why I had to go through so much emotional pain. I mean, I could have just gone through such kind of pain vicariously, right? I have witnessed friends go through break-ups and separations; were those not enough to learn my lesson?

As I wrote the letters, I remembered the lessons I have learned from those two events. And those are what I passed on to my friends. Now I know why I had to go through those experiences, through such heart-wrenching pain.

A Letter in Need of Answers…or Maybe Not

I have been meaning to ask you why it was so easy for you to let everything go. You know, just cut it off and move on? Like the fifteen months never happened. Like there was no regard at all for the friendship that we somehow had (I would like to believe we somehow had). I, on the other hand, went through all the stages of grief. Wikipedia said that one would go through at least two and I went through all the five—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Talk about exceeding expectations! And just like what Wikipedia said, I didn’t go through grief in that order although of course, acceptance was the last stage. Actually, I think I had gone around in circles—bargaining then denial then anger then depression then bargaining then anger again—before I finally came to acceptance. I have forgiven you although you have never apologized. It was hard but the coldness I received from you somehow helped. It would have been so much easier to remain angry but I didn’t want myself to suffer in silence in my corner of the world and be eaten up by anger and be defeated when you were probably out there partying and having a grand time. So, I chose to forgive. Now, when the memories come back, I do not choose to forget, because I can’t, at least not for now, but I try to choose not to remember.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand how someone could just let go of that friendship. I fight for my relationships especially with my friends and I fought for ours. But you, you just turned everything off as if you just flicked a switch. Just OFF all of a sudden and I guess without a fight. That easily. Why was it so easy for you? Maybe we’re just really different creatures but yes, I remember having done that once. I just shrugged someone off and moved on. Maybe, it was the same for you.