Life, Day by Day

I just got home from a dinner date with high school classmates, one of whom is visiting from abroad.  Although there were just the three of us, we had a lot of fun reminiscing about our younger days and sharing stories about our lives now.  It dawned on me as I was driving home that although we have long been living separate lives, there will always be ties that bind us together, just as some of these also bring up ghosts of our past.

Look what I found! Just when I thought that my Entrecard blogger friends were lost forever, a blogger angel put up a page listing them down (and this blog is in the list!) Thank you so much, Grandma's Goulash ! For those who may not know what Entrecard is...or was, it was a blogger network where you visit blogs by clicking on their ads.  It was like leaving your business card on other blogs and this was very helpful in bringing traffic to your own blog. Although I was not on it everyday, I found some great blogs there and even made friends. So you can imagine my dismay when one day the site just closed down without any warning. I was so annoyed because there were some sites that I liked visiting but was not able to link up with.   Finding this link list (courtesy of a post by Life with a Parasite) sure made my day! Now I can go visit my favorite sites again :)

I met Pocholo when we were both enrolled in a pre-med course in La Salle Bacolod. He eventually changed course and became a lawyer while I plodded on to become a doctor. I only stayed for 2 years in La Salle Bacolod but that was enough to create a lasting friendship.  Thinking back, he was not your typical teenager...although I found him both serious and funny, Philip as we called him then was also very responsible, caring and helpful.  On hindsight, he was very protective towards all of us that he seemed to be older and more mature. In fact it is only now that I learn that he is just one month older than I am. I have many good memories of  Philip "Pocholo" Dabao as Philip and later as Pocholo.  He became Pocholo or Pochoy to me, 25 years later when I attended the homecoming in La Salle when he was the alumni president. As time went on, I would see him rarely...but every time we did, we always have a short chat catching up on each other's lives. I have this one spec...

Before anything else, I just want to say that what I wrote about goodbye doesn't mean forever is not a confession of someone "in love"...lest I be misunderstood. I am not talking about love in the context of being in love. Yet, there is a special regard...something akin to filial love. It's the feeling you get when you miss a close friend and would like to be with that friend...it is feeling disappointed when you realize that you are not as important to your friend as he is to you...it is feeling bad when your friend doesn't find time for you...and because of all these feelings, sadness and uncertainty happens causing you to be afraid that you are slowly losing a friend. If all these feelings mean I love my friend, then I guess I do. After listening to the song My Goodbye Girl, I wanted to believe that the lyrics applied to me and my friend, that's why I posted it here. But as an afterthought, I now believe that our kind of friendship is pretty superficia...

"The Goodbye Girl" is a single released by David Gates, lead singer of the group Bread, in 1977 following the premiere of the hit movie by the same title (based on a book by Neil Simon). The lyrics says so many of the things I want to say, but am afraid to say...to the someone I thought was my friend... All your life you've waited For love to come and stay And now that I have found you You must not slip away I know it's hard believin' The words you've heard before But darlin' you must trust them just once more 'Cause baby, goodbye doesn't mean forever Let me tell you Goodbye doesn't mean We'll never be together again If you wake up and I'm not there I won't be long away 'Cause the things you do my goodbye girl Will bring me back to you I know you've been taken Afraid to hurt again You fight the love you feel for me Instead of givin' in But I can wait forever Helping you to see That I was meant for you and you for me S...

I would always say... blessed are those who expect nothing and they shall not be disappointed , and I try my best to live this in most of everything that happens in my life. But sometimes I don't succeed very well and that I find this is easier said than done. Last Tuesday, it happened again when I felt really neglected because I have not been hearing from a friend I cared about. Suddenly, it seemed that our friendship was important only to me. It's not a new feeling, but this time it felt real. In the past, I would ignore the questions in my mind...after all, I had no expectations. This was an accidental friendship and I was just happy that I found a friend who I felt understood me. But as the years go, I feel from my point of view that the friendship is beginning to fall apart. Maybe because now I have expectations while my friend continue to have none? But a friendship is like a seed... it is planted, it is nourished, it grows roots before it can survive. Friendship i...

There's a new movie showing right now, starring Aga Muhlach, Maricel Soriano and Angelica Panganiban called A Love Story . It is about an illicit love affair that could question one's belief on marriage and true love. According to its writer, Vanessa Valdez, the story answers a number of "ifs" in marriage — what if one realizes the one they're married to is not the one they want to spend the rest of their life with or what if you meet the woman you want to make your wife only after you've gotten married. Now, that is definitely a problem . A film with the theme of an extra-marital affair is nothing new. In fact, this is an oft-repeated topic since movie-making began. I remember the movies The Philadelphia Story (1940) and it's remake, High Society (1956) and the scenes where the daughter refused to invite her father to her wedding (her second) because he was such a philanderer. I remember the mother telling her daughter very matter-of-factly that her...