HAPPY BIRTHDAY PURPLE CAT

Purple Cat's birthday is on April 25. But I am posting this already as she may be gone to Baguio by then...

I was lining up outside our department Dean's Office for my enrollment. Cathyne, a transferee from St Louis University, approached me like a cat asking for some milk. "Anne, can you help me get into the school organ?" I was then the editor of our college magazine. I didn't know she knew I was the editor. Back in college, I made myself as invisible as I could get. I just simply hated to be seen or be acknowledged. It was quite a surprise on my part that a fair, tall, beautiful and smart chinita from the famous Baguio would know of my existence! She was way too interesting and everybody wanted to be her friend. I was a quiet, shy, anti-social student who would never strike a conversation nor look anybody in the eye.

She got into our school paper in no time. By the time she became the sports editor, we were inseparable. Up to this day, it is a wonder to me how we got to be friends. As far as I could remember, the main reason why I wanted to stick with her was because she was always ready to lend me P50 pesos whenever I ran out of pamasahe. Eventually I just found myself wanting more and more to hang out with her simply because we listened to the same radio station, memorizing almost every WRock song. Most weekends, I stayed in their house, we would stay up till the wee hours talking, watching TV, playing with her radio transciever or popularly know that time as walkie-talkie. And on schooldays, everynight, we burnt telephone lines talking nonstop about our favorite tv programs, movies, and sometimes slandering about classmates and schoolmates that we hated. We were so enseparable that we were suspected to be lesbians. *gosh*

We especially bonded through the trips we made together. She went to visit my family in Iloilo and stayed there for a few days. It was for the most part special because she was able to meet my family and see the place I spent some part of my childhood. Cathyne is a sucker for anything sentimental, particularly places of childhood. She shared with me hartwarming memories of her flores de mayo, how she, like any other kid, would steal flowers from neighbors's gardens.
Every once in a while she would fall into depression, lock herself in her room for days and would not talk to anybody. I, as a privileged friend, would go to her house and knock in her room. She would show me the things she threw on the wall, books and magazines torn apart, the evidences of her unspoken angst and pains. She had plenty of those, and so did I. Looking back now, I guess that's where we met, in the secret spaces inside us somewhere, where we felt alone and misunderstood. My sister and I were living on our own, our parents in Iloilo. Periodically I would leave school for a few days and go see my parents. Each time I had to go, Cathyne would have a hard time seeing me off. We would just sit around and not talk much. I knew so much about her silence, and she knew mine.

Ten years after college, we are now both married, she with a beautiful daughter and me, with an equally cute son! She has put on some ample amount of weight (friends ta cat no?ti medyo kind gid ko sa akon words.nyehehehe) and is constantly trying to stick on her diet, and well, yes, constantly failing. I remember her dieting no-end just to make her painfully thin crush notice her, to no avail. She almost considered her weight back then a curse. (ok, im exaggerating)
What I appreciate most about Cat is that she gives me freedom to be myself. I can be as careless with my words as I could get, she would take no offense. I could never recall a time when she got mad at me. I got mad at her once, the only time up till now, when she made me weight for 45 minutes at an agreed rendezvous. I didn't talk to her for days. Of course she was ecstatic when I finally smiled at her. Our friendship is built on mutual trust and respect. I guess that's one of the secrets to a lasting friendship.

I wanted a friend who is happy for the things I achieve in life, someone who is there to cheer me on and be proud of me. I wanted a friend who never asks questions but who never minds answering mine. I wanted a friend who knows the whys and the hows of my life, without me having to explain. I wanted a friend who understands life too well to allow me to live my own.
Cathyne is that kind of friend and I will forever cherish and appreciate her for the 'purple cat' that she is.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KURING! Praying for your happiness, your dreams, the desires of your heart that not everybody knows and really understands. Like a cat you defy death, manytimes, that come in different faces. Discouragement, threat, failure, fear, loss, a lot more. Look at you, standing proud and tall, claws ready for a brawl, yet never losing grace and elegance. Purr on!!

Love,
Anne

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VIVIAN!!

Vivian and I have been friends for almost 20 years now. We were classmates in first year high school. Being both really shy made us the best of friends. We would hand letters to each other almost everyday, sharing our innocent dreams and childish woes about life that was almost in miserable poverty. We promised each other we would pursue our dreams together, no matter what, to help our parents and siblings. After high school we applied for a scholarship in the same university and made it through after five years. There was a time when she expressed interest in transferring school. I was very devastated. She would meet new friends, follow different set of dreams with new opportunities. I cried for some nights. I couldnt ask her straight if indeed she was leaving our present school. Maybe I was scared of her answer. But one time she mentioned it to me and said she's decided against it, thinking of the new adjustments, the uncertainties, and of course she knew I really wanted us to graduate from the same school.


She was my other half, if you can call it that way. We planned of one day living in a twin house, one next to the other. We grew our hair long, and if one wanted to have a haircut, the other one should have a haircut, too! We shared everything about us, both petty and otherwise. She is one great storyteller, telling me of her earliest memories using her poignant words that always don't fail to amaze me. Her search for peace, happiness, serenity contaminated my soul and I, too, wanted those things.


I could never recall a time when Vivian got mad at me. I guess I can never let her get angry with me, no matter what I will do. For her, everything that I am, everything that I say or do, is just right. I got mad at her a few times, and each time she was afraid of me. She put me on a pedestal, never wanting to see me cry or yes, angry. She thought I was the best person ever alive on earth, she almost considered me a saint. Every time I talked, she listened to me and cupped my every word. Up to this day, she still thinks I am the best. (sure ka vian? hehehe) Every once in a while I wonder how come? I always tell her I got my own darkness, my own mistakes, my own fears. But no, she always finds reasons for these. By herself, she is one amazingly strong woman, never complaining, always achieving. All she wants is to give and give not wanting to get anything in return, most of the time refusing help.


A few years after college she decided to seek opportunity abroad. The night before she left, she spent it with me at home. We rummaged through my boxes of old letters and keepsakes from her. Together we reread, recalled, and laughed and cried. I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to face the next morning and see her go and finally reach for her star. The next morning was one of my most painful mornings, writing about it right now makes me cry. I had to put up a brave face, I didn't want her to see my pain because it woudln't help her. I decided not to see her off at the airport. When she's gone it felt weird, I almost literally looked to see if my fingers were complete, or my ears, or my legs. I knew, anyway, that it was my heart missing a big piece.

On her second day at work in a new country, she called me crying from a phonebooth, wanting so much to come back home. She was finding it hard to bear the pain of loneliness, saying she would rather go home to a simple life but with me around. She called almost everyday for a few weeks. Later on the calls gradually were reduced to letters every once in a while. Yes, finally, she found her ground, not steady yet, but at least she finally found someone to hold on to. She has trayed quite a bit away from me, especially when she got married and had her first child. She would come home every once in a while, but as much as I wanted to reconnect, she just seemed a different person. There was a time when I burned some of her letters to me back in high school. I would cry almost every night, grieving over what I thought was a lost friendship.


But she came home. I no longer hoped for it, but she found me again. Maybe I wasn't really lost in her memory, after all. By the time she had her second child, she opened up to me the pains she kept all those years she stayed away. Yes, indeed, she set me aside, never wanting to upset me by her stories of profound sufferings. When I saw her cry for the first time after many years, it pierced my heart thinking why have I been exculded from those pains. She is a part of me. I will grow old dependent on her existence, on her friendship, on her faith in me and what I could be.


Happy Birthday dear Vivian. Thank you for all that you are to me. Your love and friendship have seen me through, all these years through good times and bad. Our dreams may have taken different routes, but inside me, is still the high-school girl dreaming of a twin-house with her best friend. One day, we will grow old but I guess our hearts will always stay young enough to understand what the stars have to say.

Love, Anne

College campus writers

College graduation

Sleeping over at her house...urgh...the bangs.

Why do we always look ugly in our school days photos?

See how dark we are? We'll that's fresh from cheering competition.

Singles for Christ dedication day

...and fellowship day

Geez, the hats...

Us, today.

NOTE: my blog address is likewaterinwater.blogspot.com I got that from my favorite line in our most favorite novel, Torrents by Anne Marie Desmerest when we were in high school. Yes, I remain the sentimental fool, high school best friend of Vivian, the double sentimental fool.