Cates Said, Jen Said
June 25, 2009
catesbool
(As of posting, I am still waiting for Jen S’ version of the story)
Cates Said:
For all my life, I have known only two kinds of friends: those who left me and those, because of changing circumstances, I had to leave behind…
Saturday started out to be a humid day. I had my usual breakfast with my family. By 11:00 a.m., I had already cooked lunch and Brianne was already having seconds (and thirds and fourths) of the tuna pasta I cooked.
A brief trip to Pasig Center told us that Brianne’s dentist is nowhere to be found that day. We went back to the Blue House and I had a brief nap after lunch beside my husband. At 2:30 p.m., I set off for Gateway.
Nothing changes when it comes to the meeting place
The venue was that Santos-Millar residence in Marikina. The occasion this time: a shower party for the pregnant woman who I wrote about in my last entry about the Yayas sometime in March this year.
For more than a decade now, I was meeting my constant companion to the venue of the Yaya’s gatherings. It was always nice to meet up with Jenny Gump somewhere posh and comfortable for these gatherings.
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf was the place I found Jenny sitting so comfortably in her Madonna-ish outfit. Her hair was up and she had this absolutely gorgeous pair of earrings matched by a thick wooden bracelet. For this occasion, I gave Jenny two thumbs up for the fabulous get up.
As usual, Marlyn was meeting up with one of the Yayas in another venue. This time, it wasn’t Cathy she convinced to meet up with her. Jen S went all the way to Trinoma as Jenny Gump and I just begged off, Gateway being more strategic for the two of us, if not comfortable. Cathy, I was told, was driving with Farlett. Gaynor was also driving to Nharl’s residence. This last, I believed.
As for Cathy driving, I had my doubts. Ever since I can remember from way back in College, Cathy has been attempting to drive. More than 10 pounds later, and a few gray hairs in between, Cathy is still attempting to drive. Of course, I should not be the one to make this observation. I haven’t done anything remotely close to driving a car. Give me a bike anytime and I am sure that the streets of Manila will give me a lot of bruises, if not scars.
Food, Glorious Food
I brought along half of the pasta I made that morning to the baby shower. Jenny and I were the earliest to arrive at the Santos-Millar residence. And that is a good understatement. The residents were not yet in also, having gone somewhere to pick up the sushi and salad stuff.
As we waited, Jenny and I talked about the stately affairs of my life. And how I seem to be successful at making a mess out of it. At the back of my mind, I knew I was screwing myself for some barbecue later. And the hundred pound of pork who will be roasted was me.
At last, the real residents arrived with a very precocious child in tow. We immediately set into the task of preparing food. Jenny prepared the dressing. She attempted to cut the veggies but I will steadfastly hang on to the contention that Nharleen’s kitchen knife was in need of sharpening and Jenny has definitely improved in her kitchen skills. More than ten years down the line, she now knows how to mix a good salad dressing. Just don’t expect her to be good at cutting the veggies. For heaven’s sake, Jenny has a PhD already. That’s good enough credential to get married. Just don’t expect that she will do well in the cutting section, whether or not the knife is sharp. Well, let’s leave it t that.
Soon, Marla and Jen S found their way along the Biblically-named streets. Oh, I nearly forgot. Definitely, there is Colossians in the Bible. And it didn’t matter that the cab driver could have driven Jenny Gump and me at some place where we could have disappeared for the rest of our lives just to prove there is no Colossians in the Bible. Well, I suppose, Jenny and I needed a refresher course on the Bible. To be given to the driver, of course.
By and by, Gaynor arrived with her kids in tow, all fresh from the Gymnastics class. They were carrying their gift for the baby as unobtrusively as possible. A blue tub gaily flashing in sight with its string of straw. Nharleen was thrilled at its sight, not with surprise.
More than half an hour later, everybody could no longer postpone devouring the food. Jenny’s salad was a huge hit. In between cheesesticks, pasta and sushi, Cathy was lost with Farlett, looking for the rainbow landmark.
By the time they found it, we were already competing with Nharleen for the most rounded belly contest.
More than a decade of friendship
On May 1996, dressed in ecru and our make-up melting under the humidity of the summer air, Gaynor, Marlyn, Jenny, Jen, Nharleen, Cathy and I held hands for a picture that surprisingly, would endure a decade of friendship.
We all knew each other very well. We’ve had our disagreements over some issues and discussed everything with such passion and fire and yes, so much laughter and tears. This time, there was more of the sharing in the discussion, a lot of listening and supporting roles in the hotseat, none of the tears and more of the acceptance that life can play with our fates without necessarily breaking us as persons. Just… almost.
Standing by the decision to let go
Jen S was first on the hot seat. There is so much in what she shared that I feel I am not at liberty to write about in this blog. What I do know, however, is that I prayed for the same courage and firmness she had. Leaving behind 8 years of emotions is never an easy feat. Going to work day in and day out, and going home to an empty room – I knew what it was all about. I was there. And I found that I am not strong enough to be alone. I do not think it is easy for Jen S. I just knew the firmness of her heart and the value she places on herself, being able to walk away from a relationship that is going nowhere. I do not feel her sense of loss. I feel the floating sensation of her being. Suspended animation… what an inertia it is.
In between, I can sense the urge in Jenny Gump to be able to face her uncertainties.
Life together on hold
I wondered, as I looked at Cathy and Farlett siting together, just how prepared they were to dodge questions from the Yayas about the postponed event of the year. I wondered how the drive and the compulsion to be together as one could seem to be so lacking.
Of course, it hits me now – the thought that a wedding does not, a marriage, make. Being together is being there for each other in the most crucial moments of our growth as people. Two lives can be spent in each other’s company and trying to catch up with each other as you both grow, even though the most formal celebration that is supposed to start it all in the eyes of God, man and the law was put on hold.
Having listened to Jen S and Cathy, I saw that early night two possibilities that was once open to me. A dignified life by myself, though for how short or long, I do not know. And two lives trying to be pieced together as one but finding that there is never enough time to go through the motions and banality of exchanging vows… yet.
Bitter-sweet, sweet-bitter…
After cakes and Vietnamese coffee, it was my turn to be grilled and roasted as I predicted. Jenny Gump, my room mate and friend who thinks I should have married my bestfriend and adopted shrink, had a really bug cudgel to take on my issues.
More than ten years ago, Jenny was the one who persisted and went against all odds to go to my residence at 2:00 a.m. just to stop me from what she thinks will be the biggest mistake of my life.
More than ten years down the line, Jenny has not lost her hopes where I am concerned. She still looks after my happiness like a guardian eagle. Life is already twisted and ironic enough. There are years when I think about how I made the right choice and there are simply years when I don’t wonder about what kind of deprivations I can further inflict on people, deliberately or otherwise. The sweet life of mine that I live. The bitter after-taste of it. And the sweet that will come again, just when I am about to lose hope.
I don’t have Jen S’ sense of dignity and capacity to live by myself. Neither do I have Cathy’s exuberance in the face of all odds against being able to build decades of life of being together, through quirks and eccentricities. I only have my own twisted beliefs and views of the world from the eyes of the people who I grew up with, of the friends who left me hanging during the most crucial moments of my life, and my own sets of beliefs when I too left some behind.
Losing my religion
Choices are only painful when we know that there are certain aspects of our lives which we must give up.
Who left whom in the case of Jen S. Why are they staying together and yet, not so together, in the case of Cathy. I, without my dignity. Jen, who is willing risk losing the very source of belief if not her parents, for a love that divides culture and a totally clear host of perfect table manners and disinfectant sprays on the bed before sleeping. I can just picture my friend and former roommate in all her immaculately clean Japanese environment.
In more ways than one, I know Jenny Gump and I are more or less similar inside out, especially with our world views and philosophical and spiritual underpinnings. Jenny Gump had always been defensive in all her relationships with the descendants of Mars. Or so she claims.
I will take a jab at it here in this blog. Jenny Gump’s Johari that I see is that she had always been uncertain, if not a little afraid that she will not have the life she had always envisioned for herself since childhood. She is always a little afraid that all her hard work will be for naught. She is always striving to have the best in her life and is more or less fearful if not worried only that she will, after all, have a mediocre life.
She takes her risks now, where the odds are higher than all other odds she’s faced in her life. Still, she will push on, I know. Because there is nothing like the persistence of the Yaya in her. She will dare to lose her religion because she has the strength to live on based on her own principles and beliefs. Uncertainties and all, she will take a risk – to simply walk out on yet another relationship or gamble on it based on econometrics and statistics.
Separate lives
Still they both share the right to being parents. Still she looks so at peace with it all. Yet another dignified human being who has remained an enigma to me all these years.
Gaynor calmly talks about being a mother to her two daughters. She talks about motherly concerns but is really a societal ill. The old-age disease of discrimination coming from a Jurassic tradition of nunnery. The centuries’ old battle between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant as exemplified in the life of her kids at present.
Through it all, my friend is as mysterious to me as the day I saw her making her own choices in life. What strength there is in her, to accept things as they are. Maybe she too feels the hurt. Her face certainly never reveals any traces of the whiplashes she had in making all those choices. But for one fateful night, I know she too can go down over 6 rounds or margaritas. And no thanks to alcohol for that. I am just of the opinion that like me, Gaynor and I do the best that we can to live. And that is what Jenny Gump sees and she is cautious about the risks. Because the risks and the returns are all there for her to see.
Buried, but still an unsettled hatchet
Marlyn sits, her beautiful elfin face the most settled among us. She remains the strongest among the Yayas. Fate has given her some of life’s most terrible blows and still she hangs tough.
These days, she is quiet. Her bubbliness is not something I often see these days. But maybe because I grew away from her. And maybe because I remind her of someone who’s caused her the biggest pain. And maybe, there was a time she needed me and I wasn’t there.
Silently, the walls whisper
Nharleen spends time with her live doll, Ashlee. She sits there in her living room, the ideal mother and wife. There was a time when she went after her dream across Southeast Asia. The woman who deals with women’s issues is involved in some struggles of her own. Being a wife and a mother is hard work. But I look at her and I look at her husband. I have to remain quiet and listen silently to the whispers of the walls around me. She too, like all the Yayas, deserve their dignities.
What was I thinking?
There was a time I almost gave up the Yayas. Too many voices trying clamoring to be heard because I refuse to listen. And because I was pig-headed enough to think I know what’s best for me in my life.
Presently, I am in the process of shedding off another friend from my list. Or maybe, I am the one being left out once again.
There was a time way back in College when my bestfriend Azel grew apart from me. For the most part, I felt so lost. There was the Yayas who saved me from my insanity.
And just as I was ready to let the Yayas go, they simply reached out their hands and their pleas.
Some friends leave you behind because they grew apart from you. Some friends, you leave behind because you grow apart from them.
Some friends, no matter how you grow apart from them and they from you, they reach out and want to learn from how you’ve grown. That’s when you know they are the kind of friends who will never let you go.
My friends are no longer two of a kind. Now I have three. The third kind is the best. I hope I can the like the third with the other friends I keep.
And like the Yayas, find within myself the grace to forgive those who left me behind, including the one I found last year, and who I feel is now in the process of leaving me behind…
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