Kindred Spirits and the Graceful Exit

Image from http://www.sxc.hu

This is Day 8 of my 30-Day Blogging Challenge which coincides with my joining Celestine Chua's 30-Day Live a Better Life Challenge.

A whirlwind brought us together. 

We were in the second grade and a small whirlwind formed in the middle of the school grounds. While most of our braver classmates rushed outside with unconstrained glee to watch this natural phenomenon, we both cowered under our desks, convinced that it was the end of the world. We were inseparable since.

With her, our ordinary school grounds were transformed into a magical place. The falling leaves of the acacia trees were elusive wish leaves, rewarding the person who catches one of them with a single wish. The narrow passage between the stone grotto of the Virgin Mary and school walls were the intestines of a giant who swallowed us whole, its protruding stones the cilia (we were fascinated with science) that moved us across the intestinal tract. A mere hole in a tree was the doorway to the land of the fairies. We would stand watch every recess time and after school for a glimpse of these shy creatures.

We read books aloud together, taking turns on the even or odd pages, a ballpoint pen serving as a pointer so we wouldn't get ahead of each other. Because her parents would frequently go to Manila, she was the source of my books aside from the library. We avidly read "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" or "Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth." We were fans of E.L. Konigsburg and Enid Blyton. We plotted on how to steal "The Princess Bride" from the library, but we never got around to actually doing it. 

Saturdays would be spent either at her house or mine, regardless that we lived about 20 kilometers apart. We would spend endless afternoons playing in the lush grounds of their neighbor who was a doctor. We buried time capsules and pretended we were characters in "The Legend of Zelda." At our house, we would play dress up; my mother had an endless supply of gowns from my relatives in Canada. We would borrow my mother's heels and strut around the house, pretending we were princesses. We mastered the fine art of dining that way, consulting a 1970s tome of fashion, beauty, and manners that I inherited from my beauty queen aunt. 

She left for two years with her family to New Zealand and Brunei, and how we missed each other. We wrote letters and although we both had friends, the moment she came back, we were together again. During high school, we would write letters, Anne of Green Gables-style, to each other and mail it. We knew that other people would think that was silly, but we were never too old for our imaginations. Our relationship was like Anne and Diana, but we could never decide who would be Anne or Diana. We both wanted to be Anne, since Diana married early and didn't go to college.

Of course there were fights, our petty jealousies, our usual teenage drama. Looking back, I believe we both envied each other, but there was no doubt about our loyalty with each other. 

One of the best memories I had with her was talking in the dark in their house. Her room was in an attic with a window and we watched in awe as the moon rose slowly in the velvet sky. 

We got into the same university during college but with different courses. She lived in a campus dormitory and I lived with my relatives. It became more difficult to keep in touch, but we would spend endless hours over the phone or have Saturday dates at Pizza Hut. She had her set of friends; I had mine and we slowly drifted apart. In elementary school, we both pledged to be bosom friends forever "as soon as the sun and moon shall endure," but we didn't realize that we'll be living in different worlds. 

Yet, I still treasured our friendship. She was my maid of honor and my eldest daughter's godmother.We would see each other once a year and I always considered her my best friend. Then, I heard that she got married. I wasn't invited. It was an intimate family affair, I heard, but the hurt was palpable nevertheless. With that gesture, she unknowingly said that the friendship is over. I would cry remembering her; my husband would comfort me and tell me that I had to let her go and would joke that I act like a jilted lover.

Today, I still cry for my best friend and mourn the loss of a great friendship, but I am ready to let go now. I still have to master the art of the graceful exit. I am inspired by what Ellen Goodman wrote in her swan song for The Washington Post, "There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives...[emphasis mine] It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on rather than out." So I tread lightly, but move forward and open myself up to new friendships.


How about you? Do you have a childhood best friend? If you're still together today, then you're truly blessed. Please take the time to tell her/him how you treasure your friendship.