Yesterday, I had lunch with my elementary classmates in Balai Gloria, Solano Nueva Vizcaya.

Aug 6, 2019. Balai Gloria, Solano, Nueva Vizcaya

It has been years before I could finally meet with some of them, but some things never seem to change because we were all comfortable, laughing our asses off with all our old jokes and present quirks. We even relived past crushes and relationships and talk as if some were in present.

June 29, 2018. Graduation Thanksgiving.

Some of them have their own families now, and one is expecting a baby on October this year. We may have different priorities and places at the moment, but one thing remains the same, we’re our own family.

I am happy that after all these years, I have kept them as friends and I look forward to more lunches with them whenever I am back home.

It’s been a while, but from time to time I am being reminded…

Like right now, on a plane back home, unknowingly picking the movie that will take me back to that day when you chose to leave without a warning. Or sometimes, randomly shopping and seeing that cartoon you were fond of, to thinking of coloring my nails, but won’t because you said I don’t look good with it, or when your song and the songs I associate with you play out of nowhere or from my playlist where I still keep that part of you (yes, I haven’t deleted them yet, nor will ever do), or just randomly popping in my head when I’m peacefully taking a shower or just doing nothing. It feels as if you’ll never ever let me forget.

I liked you - way too much than I’ll ever admit to myself. I never told you but you knew it anyway. Maybe it was the way I never knew you or the way I have always looked from afar that I found you perfect. I never got to know the entirety of you. Only the bits and pieces, but it was okay - I have grown to be okay with it. We became really good friends, but I still looked forward to seeing you, more than everyone else, around the corridors of our university. Yes, it - you - used to be my highlight. The only person I liked and didn’t tell him about it.

I liked the way you called me by a pet name, one you made that time we were hanging out in the library (for a reason I don’t even remember anymore). I have never seen you laugh that hard, to the point that you lost your balance and almost fell off the stairs. The last time you talked to me, even though we - I - already knew for sure the we can never be, it was still the way you called me, and I will never forget. I wonder when or where will another person come up with that same pet name, but I won’t let him/her call me that anyway. It’s yours and yours alone.

I am sometimes starting to forget, but somehow the universe won’t let me. Will it ever let me? Will you ever really leave me?

For lunch, there are several restaurants near the vicinity so it wouldn't really be much of a problem to look for one.