One Night; One Friend; One Can

Depression is a disease that would cripple you. It will glue you to your lonely bed. And thoughts would defeat you and you’ll end up sobbing in solitude. If you won’t fight it, it will surely kill you.

What else could wash depression away than a can of beer, a good conversation with an equally (or maybe less but she’s a good friend enough to be empathetic) depressed friend. One night of pouring beers and pouring miseries out. It is comforting when your thoughts and emotions turn into words and someone was there to react to it. Someone is there not to tell you that you’re stupid but someone understanding enough to tell you that following your heart may not be right but as long as it makes you happy, it’s alright. But when you say that you’ve had enough, she’ll support you all the way. Its always great to have a friend that would jump along a cliff with you. But its always greater to have a friend that could share a can or more of beer with you.

So what exactly am I depressed about? This is the first time I’m going to spill it. And its not because of the beer but because when you’re full you have to let some out. So I was in a relationship for six months now. It is not remotely dead yet but I’ve been mourning the whole life of our so called relationship. I met this guy in a bar and its not completely love at first site, it might just be because he came in the right time. The time when I was starving for immediate love subject. I was so uninspired and needs to forget. So in short, as in really short, like a day, I entered a relationship with a guy I met within twenty four hours. It was way more than being stupid. And besides I wasn’t ready. So just like all relationships that started in haste it came crumbling faster than a speeding bullet. It struck me right into the chest and left me blooded and in extreme pain. After the hurting subsided I realized I wasn’t in love with the person, I was in love with the idea of love. And now I still couldn’t find the courage to end it, though by relationship and its true essence, it has already ended a long time ago, I just turned my eyes blind to it.

I know my friend is going through the same thing. We don’t have to talk about it openly but we know we understand its other. One thing that always ends up hurting us is how ideally romantic we are. I can pretty much say that were the keeper kind but we always end being abandoned, abused and taken for granted. We deserve the best and if there’s there’s a better word than best in the dictionary, we probably deserve it too.

I almost emptied the can, and my thoughts too. That one friend is not just the friend sitting here beside me but also the friend who is reading this.

The Times They’re A Changing

These are stories of rocks turning to diamonds but sadly the precious stone had to be thrown away.

Ask me what are my fears, I would give you an unending illogical list but sum them all up, you’ll get the ultimate answer, and its change. I want to make a change but within me hides a deep fear of change. That’s the irony of my life. Lately, I’ve been confronted by changes, glaring at me eye to eye, piercing through my thoughts and beating my weary soul to depression.

My high school friends used to be the center of my universe. Imperfections were noted, dealed with and accepted. Nothing can seem to break us, except debates in history classes but all will be settled over a stick of banana cue and a plastic of buco juice. With them, life was so simple, you go to school, go home, sleep so the next day you can do the same thing. It was generally routinary but did we ever get bored with it? Not that my almost androidal memory can remember. Six years after, you see them down the street, you smile, you say hello and ask how are you. It all felt obligatory. Even if you’ve arranged to meet them in a fancy restaurant, awkward silence would hang imbalanced in the air. Topics revolved on necessary catching up that are mostly less interesting. The inside jokes are slightly offensive rather than amusing. And the only thing sweet about the reunion would be the desert. You’ve just spent too much time apart that you felt stranger to each other. Somewhere along growing up and growing old, the bond of the past had snapped.

Meanwhile, the situation with childhood friends is different. They’re the people who saw how awkward you were as a child. They’ve witnessed how scrawny you were. And never tell others about it. Somehow you developed a mutual secrecy almost sacred that people couldn’t penetrate. But when childhood is over somehow that thing you shared fades away. You go home but you’d rather watch How I Met Your Mother than talk to them. They’re not part of your alibis anymore so you stop asking them a bargain.

University friends are almost the same with high school friends but they make an effort to meet you as much as they can. Its a give and take that depends on moods. Sadly the number of meetings you had with them is equal to the number of your existential meltdowns. Interestingly enough you still dont run out of topic. But the sad irony is some of them you see everytime just dont know what to say to you anymore. They have evolved along with a world different from yours. They have found another circle of friends. Some still struggles to keep in touch driven by how fun those memories were. Somehow they hope that they can relive it. But there are the close knitted friendships that still continues to make memories outside the symbolic gates of university life.

Then there are the friends you meet along the way. Since you stumble upon them on the road when you go on some goes to continue with you some takes the intersection and take a different road away from you. They sit with you and share a bottle of beer and say “one for the road.”   When you meet them one day they just give you a customary smile, the kind that they give to everyone. You try to start a conversation but they’re too busy to go on with their own life.

As time flies change steals people from you. Sometimes you fight for them oftentimes you give up. But no matter which option you choose you still end up hurt.  I guess that’s just how life goes.