Old Friends

She was tempted to saturate her thoughts with pointless truisms and clichés lest she become unable to justify the underlying current and motif behind her current mood. A mood seeming all too consubstantial with the gray clouds lingering outside her bedroom window. As a result of back/forth messaging and e-mails, she took a moment to browse through the perused pages of her outdated photo albums, and immediately felt a profound sense of loss while staring at the faces of these people who, at one point, she thought she could never live without.

Looking out into the distance, she softly whispered, “Where had our friendship gone? It simply couldn’t have evaporated into insignificance, could it?”

These faces were that of friends with whom she enveloped a full-on drowning commitment. Faces that were there in moments where she chose to abandon rationale and live strictly on her adolescent 14-15-16-17 year old impulse. Faces that smiled at her when she fell unsteady and played on a deadly edge of heightened emotion. Her best friends saw all of her faces; all of her idiosyncrasies, insecurities, daydreams, and inconsistencies.

Richard, Justin, IJ, Diana, Araceli, Wanda (Big Girl): Even if today we roam streets with new best friends, there will always be space for all of you in my heart. So please mind that while our friendships often dwell in limbo for far too long before we all find time in our schedules to reunite, real friendships outlive all clocks. We were closest when material things meant little to us. We were just glad to be alive, healthy, and popular.

Autumn

I can sense a turning tide in the rusting of bright leaves. The sober satisfaction spread across my face upon the sound of my foot snapping them in halves. Does this mark an end? Or a beginning?

Many insist on eking summer days & nights. They feel as though with coming breeze, comes dullness of color and staleness of air. I disagree. I say embrace the coming seasons akin to the ways in which we embrace the idea of a coming day. How can the color of crackling leaves be dull? The orange and browns that remind us of the setting sun. How can the color of fresh fallen snow be dull? A white so luminous, vibrant, innocent, and untainted. How can the air be stale when it’s the same breeze that sweeps your lover’s hair across her face. The same wind the blows afar your doubts about yesteryear and the mistakes of five minutes ago. Embrace change. Embrace the seasons to come, and the colors that make it stand out so. It’s one of God’s greatest majesties.

And with this warm embrace, so too you grasp the seasons of your life. God’s greatest majesty of all.

Moved

I am moved by many things. At the risk of sounding corny (and psychotic), I find it almost soothing to admit that I often catch myself in tears. Not the kind of cry that leaves you breathless and dehydrated, but the cry that induces blurry vision for a few seconds ~ before you tilt your head back and blink away any proof of being moved. Sometimes I am moved in a good way, but not always.

Helen once told me how strong she thought I was. How I am able to put into words exactly how I feel (and sometimes how she feels), accept it, and move on. Such strength has come with growth. With maturation, I have allowed myself to shed insecurities inherited from a youthful version of myself. I have imbibed a loving gaze upon the scars of my mistakes, and have allowed myself to turn the page. I am always eager to give myself peace of mind lest I be one to hurt.

But I cannot always be so strong (though I dared not remind her of this, and all of the times she has seen me in tears, face buried in pillow, body covered by sheets). Sometimes I cannot put into words what I feel, sometimes I am speechless, and sometimes I refuse to accept what is real. I am fragile, impatient, stubborn, and vulnerable (not only to my own passing whims, but those of others as well), characteristics inherent to my own individual composition.

And during these moments when I do not consider myself to be as strong as I can be, I am moved. My body physically refuses to hold back, and becomes willing to divulge the blended emotions that run through my mind in the form of translucent liquid ~ seeping through the corners of my eyes. You’d never know it. I hide it well.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Happy Birthday Mum! My mother is my rock & is the kindest person I'll ever come to know. I am so blessed to have lived inside her stomach once upon a time. Haha. I love you.


Photo: Mom, Me, Paul