MY SEARCH FOR THAT “ONE FRIEND”

Blankly staring at the wall in search of something worthwhile to write about, I was suddenly caught in awe when I heard the song “One Friend” playing over the computer while my pretty friend was doing her assignment for the day. Instantaneously my memory went back to my high school days because that was one of my favorite songs way back then.

I sincerely think that all of us are in search for a ‘one true friend’ who fits perfectly well with the song’s description as follows: someone who understands me/ and knows me inside out/ and helps keep me together/ and believes without a doubt that I could move a mountain/ someone to tell it, too.

The foolish thing is, way back then I really thought I found one already. That friend was a real joy even if I seemed to always have butterflies in my stomach every time he was around. It was a puzzle I did not so much mind because I was overwhelmingly happy every time anyways, I thought.

Then one day he walked out on our friendship. I did not know why then and I still do not know now. I guess I will never know even in the coming days. Sad, but his banishing into thin air without notice seemed to me the culmination of my pains of abandonment since childhood. I cried all the oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, etcetera, etcetera.

Until one day, I finally got tired of crying I decided to erase the “friendship of him chapter” in my mind. Wrong decision! I should have forgiven and just consoled myself by drawing probable causes of his leaving instead of pushing things somewhere inside my head. That wrong decision led me to a hardened heart. The worst thing is, it created a lacuna – the blind spot we unconsciously create in our minds (please refer to THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF DECEPTION by Daniel Goleman) – in me.

Nothing was right since then. I was definitely badly affected by my wrong decision. I got what I deserved. Life is like that pretty much. One false move and…wham! Diri la domino effect an nahinanabo, may rippling effect pa gud. Absolute natural law: what goes around, comes around. Nobody runs away from it.

I wrote this during the time when the teleserye “Sana Maulit Muli” was airing on Channel 2. (Yes, I was also baduy then. At paminsan-minsan I’d like to be baduy pa rin.) My kids were wondering why I was not at all interested viewing it. Fact is, when Channel 2 was yet airing its trailer I found myself crying always.

Labot la gud man san kamatuuran nga OA ak, I fully understood as well the reason for my uncontrollable emotions. You see, when we leave the gates open there will always be ghosts to haunt us until we are given the opportunity to close them finally. In God’s time that opportunity will come. He promised that (see Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). In the meantime, we wait patiently while doing what must be done – His Will. And should in case no opportunity of that sort happens, we rest in complete trust that it is also His Will. We do not question God.

Maybe the only thing important in life is for me to be guided through with the philosophy that “the past is behind me; the present is now to be attended to; and the future is in God’s hands”.

My love and deep gratitude san iyo pag-upod san akon ka-OA-han. God bless us!