on friendship and the crushing weight of loving
to start it off, what brought this all about was this series of chan’s latest bubble messages:
“i’m just really thankful to the 7 kids and stays for saving me.
if they didn’t exist
i’m sure i wouldn’t be here.
to think about it
i think that’s why the members are my first priority
and i just want to repay my saviours for what they’ve done for me.
yet i need to do more for them.
they give me reason to live on haha.”
first of all, this isn’t a haha situation, chan. i’m in the middle of pricing 163 items and now i’m crying at 1am. the can of alcohol i had, though weak, isn’t doing much to help.
recently, i’ve been thinking about my friends a lot. i don’t know if it’s all the free time i have, or if it’s some evil plot against me by my hormones, or if i have just gotten softer with my age, but every time i think about my friends, i tear up a little bit.
earlier today, my friend martha sent me a link. it was a form to fill up a message for our other friend, jade, who’s already preparing to take her board exams this month.
“board exams already?” i replied.
“right? crazy part of our lives to be in,” martha texts.
maurice graduated last week. i’m in the process of getting my license and looking at private healthcare. martha’s taking a break from work. carmen got promoted recently. moi started working at carmen’s office. sofia’s flourishing in san francisco. aria got accepted for a masters program in singapore. tahlia’s looking at real estate with her boyfriend.
being in your mid 20s is truly just crazy. we’ve come so far, but our lives have also just started. we’re looking at moving out, staying at home, traveling in quarter 3 of next year, looking at concert dates and tickets.
this afternoon, over my lunch (which was an almond croissant at 2pm because i wasn’t hungry), i started thinking about how i now have the group of friends i always craved for as a child. i’ve just been so busy trying to navigate my 20s and figure out who i am and want to be that i didn’t realise it.
my biggest fear in life is being known. how terrifying it is to be known by someone so well and so thoroughly; to be able to bare your soul to someone who you aren’t even sure will stay, or leave.
my friends are an exception to that. it took me this long to realise it, but i now have friends who would listen to me when i talk, who wouldn’t say they didn’t care about my interests, or that i was annoying when i was excited. i have friends who know me well enough to look at something and remember me. i have friends who are more family than anything else.
when i was 15 and convinced i was the worst person on the planet, i thought that i would have ended my life at 18. but i didn’t. instead, i met gabby at 16. martha and i grew closer at 19. a discord server bridged me closer to gabby’s other friends at 20. at 23, i played dungeons and dragons with them every other sunday. maurice and i step into our lives as adults at 24 (and i still play dungeons and dragons with my other friends).
i’m glad my life didn’t end at 18—that i stuck around long enough to greet my mid 20s (and maybe my late 20s).
at 24 (or 25, if we go by my chinese age), i receive the world’s most common questions—do you have a boyfriend? are you getting married?
if i was joking, i’d say yes. my boyfriend is actually bang chan from stray kids and we’re getting married when he’s 37 and we no longer have to worry about his toxic fans.
but my real feelings are that it doesn’t matter. even if i never date and never marry, i truly believe it’ll all be okay as long as i have my friends with me.
i’ve never watched friends, but the line “boyfriends and girlfriends come and go but this is for life” by phoebe buffay is something i think about often.
at the end of the day, when I’ve passed on and god asks me count my riches and my blessings in life, i won’t count what’s in my bank, i’ll count my friends.
and now that i think about it—i think i have one friend for every year i spent alone as a child and every year a “friend” turned their back against me.
how truly lucky i am to be known and loved by so many.
ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚
unedited because i still have 33 pages worth of furnishings to price. but here is a song as always.
friends who have bearblog or read my blog, if you see this — i love you. thank you for loving me too. and for being in my life. i am inarguably a better person because of all of you.
as lee know says, let’s all live healthily and die a natural death.