Friends

What pops into your head when you think about friends?
Faces? Lame jokes?

Me? The first thing that comes to mind is the my school days.
From what I can recall, I changed schools quite often during my childhood.
I was really quiet and never mingled with others.
(I was too shy and back then we didn't have Facebook - ha ha)
There was this one time when I changed schools,
I could still remember I cried so hard, the whole time wishing that I did not have to leave my new schoolmates who I had yet to know more about.

Every time is about the same,
new environment.. new faces.. same old me..

Fast forward to years later, I made lots and lots of amazing friends
and my first best friend Esther.
We did a lot of fun things together.
We cycle together, swim together, sing together, laugh together..
We always sat next to each other in class
and talked non stop about anything and everything.
The good thing is after we graduated, we still keep in touch and hang out.

Other than school friends, I have friends who I got to know from my religion circle, youth programs and those rare encounters with strangers you meet who become your close friends in just a blink of an eye. That would be my dear friend Rehanna.
I was sitting on the floor, flipping through a Michael Jackson book in Borders.
She saw me and she just started a conversation with me just like that.
Since we are fans of Michael Jackson, we looked at all the pictures of MJ together,
laughing at the round frizzly hair he had. We became friends instantly.

To me, friends are forever and they are the ones who we will always have in times of happiness and sadness. They are the one treasure and a blessing to me.

As William Shakespeare says,
"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”