Old Friends

Ours was a friendship tested by time and strengthened by our mutual love of novels and japanese anime. Jo is already a registered nurse taking up masterals (and is planning to take up law afterwards), Al has a degree in Psychology and Anne just finished the nursing boards and is still waiting for the results. The last one (me), is a medical student.

But even with extra letters after our names, we were still practically the same young girls who roamed the streets early in the morning in our bicycles and dreamed up stories and our futures as we waited for the sun to rise.

A stranger hearing us talk would have thought we were still in high school. We still griped about our lovelife (or rather, the lack of it) and got really excited talking about the latest japanese anime we were currently hooked on.

Our friendship started in grade school and blossomed in high school. We hardly saw each other when we got to college. But every year, on this particular day, we'd gather at Lexie's house for her birthday. On this particular day, we'd update each other on our love life, our current favorite anime, books we like, our plans in life, etc etc etc.

The thing is, I'm the kind of person who is not quite sociable. I usually avoid former friends and acquaintances I haven't met in a long while. I don't like groping around for something to talk about to fill awkward silences. I have former best friends I can no longer connect to. The long time apart somehow created a gap and somehow, I'd find that we were no longer on the same wavelength.

Not with these three. We could be apart for years with hardly any communication and we'd still be on the same frequency. I can just imagine the four of us, gray and wrinkled, still talking about Japanese anime.

Our day is done. We've parted ways again. But there are no goodbyes for us.