I have one very best friend. I met her in Junior High School, when we were twelve. She sat beside me, and it began with a chaotic day when I found that my eraser was nowhere to be seen. She helped me, and we became best friend, it was not intentional, but completely natural. Then we liked to hang out with each other, visited each other house, we became inseparable.
At first, I thought she is very similar to me. We have same family background; big family and we have similar taste about many things. But come to think of it, she is very different. I was a silent motor, I ran wall magazine, lively English club, led some girl scout team, mhaha… but silent, because I left all the human relation things to my other friend, I enjoyed to be the motor but not the bumper. My friend was a very royal supporter, she always backed me up with her own style of honesty. If I were rebellious, she was my rebellious agent with a lot of “Don’t do that, don’t do this, you will regret..” bla bla, but she would pass me the weapon faster than anybody else.
If there were some bad manner boys on the street, I would scold them and lift my umbrella while she was pulling my hand away and then talked me out of my anger. She is a very nice person, always, she would happily play what I play or come out and support me, she learn what I learn and I did the same for her.
We led ordinary humble teenager’s life, we met outside school for outing, stationary shopping (it was a small town! ; p ) and together, we created a study group which grew bigger and attracted other friends. (What a parent dream about girl I was?!) On third grade, we were not placed in the same class, and things were almost unbearable at first. Guys started to do some funny things, secret letters, songs, gifts, and girls started to get naughty, everybody tried to prove that they were growing up.
“Who wants to see A guy kiss B girl after class? I have secret information….”
“Do you know that we find something in C guy wallet? It was a …. “
Then the girls would let some guys or other girls snapped their bra straps and chased each other like hamsters during break. They did it to almost everybody, but not us because I had my fist on the air. If you think being snapped is good let me try it with belt…
Well, although we were not in the same class, we still did everything together as usual. Although we were far from being nasty teenager, we also did what most teenagers did at that time. Pretty picture was a trend, we exchanged colorful one, the one with flower or fish net background (two options only!) and you had to put one hand grabbing some hair on shoulder or posing with hats. We had quite a few, some of them made it into shop display, who-haha…that was quite an achievement! Kekekkeke…then we had quite a big plan, saved some money and bought our own film and took pictures of each other, I managed to smuggle Dad’s camera, and she smuggled her sister clothes and funny hats. We spent a day and then happily waited for the picture results, thinking that we had 36 unique photo with different background. When the results were out, all 36 pictures were either blur, too small or mostly didn’t survive the lighting.
We frowned for a day.
When I finished my Junior High School, there were rumors that my family would move to Jakarta, but I didn’t confirm it to my friend as it was confirmed during holiday breaks. No telephone, we couldn’t communicate to each other, until the day we met at school, a week before I traveled to Jakarta. She happened to ask me about the moving plan, something she did for fun, as both of us never thought about the possibility of it to be true. I even had registered myself to continue to the Senior High with same school for plan B, and we had been so happy to be in the same class again.
I remembered I was casually answered next week, from excited about the news then suddenly I knew that we might not spend time together again. We were quiet, as usual, maybe until now, we hardly expressed our emotions.
Surprisingly, each day closer to the day, I found that I had more than one best friends, they came to my house, they made a little farewell party at their house, or we went out together. Some even said goodbye with teary eyes and said that I was their best friends, something I didn’t even know. :”(
When I reached Jakarta, at least a year after that (until I moved to the bloody Desa Neroktok, Samping Gang Kancil, Dekat Jembatan Tol without number kind of address) I had never passed a single week with less than three letters in my mail box with those cute and scented envelopes.
I went home once for holiday when I was sixteen, rode plane and stayed alone in my Dad’s business house. She would come and accompany me and both of us with another good friend would go for a nice stroll along the town. They were good with motorcycle, the main vehicle there, and three of us went back to the Photo Studio, this time, we took casual picture, without the fish net and fake smile, but side but side laughing.
I went home again once when I was in the university, although our flows of letter were not as good as usual, we always kept in touch.
When I moved to Batam for my first job, I found out that she had been engaged to some guy she only met once. I was worried for her, but she told me that she was stuck, she didn’t have decent job and she didn’t know what else to do. I tried to talk her out of it, and even asked her to join me and try together, although I couldn’t even sure that myself would make it. It was beyond my imagination that my friend would be married to some guy, and they would stay in Jakarta, how if he abandoned her etc…, but she didn’t wish to consider my ‘freedom’ option and chose to get married. I couldn’t do anything but to wish her well.
First year, she was having a bad time with her in-laws, but she has this strong determination to always look at things positively. Sometimes I find that she is too giving to situation and always chooses to flow with the current and pick the flower along the way rather than swim against it without anything certain in sight once in a while.
She always tells me she is leading a life that she doesn’t really dream of, but she always cherish it no matter what, at least, she has what she have.
Maybe I’m still not into her way of thinking, but I always admire her for her strength and patience. I remember her most today because I am somehow feeling too many aura of negativity between my colleagues. They always complain about work, I have tons of complain too, but what good does it make except makes you feeling down?
Then, I want to remember her method, at least I still have something to do… and no matter how, it keeps me alive here…
That, I need positive friend and positive thinking! Yay!
I’ll call her tonight. : )
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Honk if you love peace and quiet.
- Anonymous
What Exactly Is Marriage?
"Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don't have to give
her back to her parents"
- Eric, AGE 6
How Does a Person Decide Whom to marry??
"My mother says to look for a man who is kind....That's what I'll
do....I'll find somebody who's kinda tall and handsome."
- Carolyn, AGE 8
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- Paul Newman.
If you think your boss is stupid remember; you wouldn't have a job if he was smarter.
- Albert Grant.
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, time stays, we go.
- Henry Austin Dobson
