Alive

[This entry is late already]

I received another wonderful birthday gift two days after. A best friend came over and made my day.

I am the one who used to have grand plans to surprise others, but I guess this is my lucky year. I remember saying how I hate being surprised, that I just want to be doing the surprises. But I have proven that it is partly a fallacy. Partly – because you could not still appreciate it from someone you dislike. I am positive the same goes for others.

On her fifteenth birthday, I showed up without prior notice. Four years later, she went all the way down to elbi and made me feel as if the day was an extension of my birthday. Proof of how our friendship grows old with our age.

Upon Cathy's surprise visit, I was able to do a sort of self-assessment. I came up with two important conclusions about myself:

One: I'd rather have few close friends who genuinely know me, and things related even if we don't speak to and see each other more often...than a bunch who calls in the middle of the night to have someone to share their beers with but does not know me in the deepest sense.

Two: I have come to love ELBI as much as where I grew up. Despite my crazy pattern of shopping and wanting of things superficial, things that extract posh and class, I still yearn for simplicity. I may fancy Havaianas, Starbucks, or anything in Ayala Malls, but in next to no time, I will stop craving for these things (perhaps not as much as I do now, really), and choose the happy yet simple life.

After all, I know myself. I am shallow. Material things may be making me happy at times. But people I love -like good friends- are those who constantly make me alive.