25

Kiddo,

Here's where I was when I wasn't with you for a night--at Cebu to attend Tatay's new pocket play and to meet these wonderful crazies I happen to call friends. They say in your lifetime, you're bound to have five people willing to die for you, ten who would strongly consider it and a strong twenty who'd be half and half. I don't know which category these people belong in but I'm sure they'll at least attend my funeral for free coffee and bis-kwits. :)

Seriously though, I don't know what process goes into choosing friends- how we choose them the way we choose them when we do- and I'm sure your process will be different from mine. But rationality aside, I love these people. I love them because with them, I have witnesses to my life. This seems like a pretty selfish reason, but isn't that just what we're looking for? Someone who reminds us that our everyday comings and goings aren't just a petty mix of plans, activities and bygones?

Some of these people I've known since I was eighteen.Eighteen! When my naivete was annoying and my idealism was cloistering. Somewhere in that mix, we started out as employees, then students, then friends. As your Tita Danica once said, it's a comforting thought to be with the same people for years.

Back when I thought relationships were a numbers game, I had high expectations but low demands. I don't want to go through having to maintain that kind of lot again. That's why I choose my friends very strictly. It seems though that my situation with having to raise you and such needs just that type of mindset again--high expectations in friendship but low demands. I've been lucky enough to have found people (aside from your ninangs, of course) with a similar mindset.

Some of them you've already met. And I can't wait for you to grow up and meet the rest. Join the madhouse, little girl. There's never enough schizoids to go around.

Crazy as always,
Mom