I've been reflecting on many things lately and some concerns never left me. Even till now. What I'm going to talk about tonight is one of them.
Life has been busy for the past few years ever since I started my practicum days. The pace never slowed down, and it was a year or two before I noticed that I have let go of many things I hold dear to me. My hobbies, my interests..
My friends.
It's not like I lost my friends when I was too occupied with work, though metaphorically it can be considered so. One day, it just hit me. Hardly. "What's going on? What the hell is going on?" It's like I lost contact with my good old friends. I can't believe I buried myself in work. Right at that moment, I had this fear in me that I might have lost them, my precious friends.
I started taking up the initiative to contact them, to keep in touch. Being busy isn't an excuse, I know that. Everyone else is busy too, it's not like I'm the only one doing all the labour. I shouldn't expect others to initiate the conversation. It takes both sides' effort to maintain a relationship.
Despite having loads of work, I tried to spend some time to reconnect with them. Some of them are staying at places with a different time zone, so I chose the time of the day which they are more likely to be able to talk. I hit the walls for quite a few times, everyone was really busy. And that just made the fear grew even worse.
I was sad and angry of myself. I let this all happen.
It was until tonight -- A call lifted the boulder and I have never felt so contented for such a long time.
I came across a video on Facebook which I thought my good old buddy would love, and sent it to her. We started talking about random updates of each other's lives, and everything was so heart-warming. That was then we started talking about some problems each of us faced for the past few years. You see, she is one of the friends aforementioned, whom I held dear and yet we both stopped talking.
We didn't knew that we both were having depressing moments. We just kept it to ourselves. Sometimes when you have too much in mind, all you could do was to keep quiet and think about it on your own. It was like we could solve the problem if we tried hard enough to figure out the solution. We have internal conflicts. We know the rights and wrongs, it just hurts to face the truth.
We haven't talked like this for years, but this 40-minute call we had.. It was like the gap never existed. We knew that we would be there for each other even if we never talked for months or years. Even if I was afraid that I might have lost her, subconsciously the trust was there all the time. I believe, that is the reason was why I never gave up in maintaining this relationship.
I thought about all the times we've been through. I remember clearly most of the moments we created together. I felt bad that I couldn't be there for her when she needed a shoulder to lean on. Even if she couldn't talk, I could at least let her know clearly that I would and will still be there for her whenever she needs someone to talk to. Tears welled up in my eyes when I thought of how stupid I was to worry about nonsense.
Friends. Close friends. I am too blessed to have them in my life. I have this sense of security when I think of them. We grew up together, as in we saw each other growing from innocent young girls into matured-thinking ladies.
We might get carried away with heavy workloads and somehow lose sight of significant things in our lives. We might not even see or talk to each other for a long period of time. Nevertheless, deep inside, you know they are there for you. They always are. Miles of distance doesn't separate us.
We're just words away from each other. ;')