i don't make friends easily. i never mastered that skill. i usually have a hard time breaking the ice. still, i am proud that i have lasting friendships. friends that i made way before puberty are still my friends and usually, these friendships border sisterhood.

one of my sisters is somewhat the opposite of this. she makes friends easily but most of them, i haven't seen or heard from in years. and, there are times when she would avoid these old friends... avoid their phone calls, emails, text messages. i always found it strange... 'coz in my head, i could never ignore a friend.

the other day, i complained to her about one of my friends. you see, i practice tact and i usually censor myself before speaking. this helps avoid hurting someone's feelings whether deliberately or not. my sister agrees that we do have that habit... however, some of our friends don't. and though they probably didn't mean to hurt you or insult you, it's still irritating. for example, your best friend has fallen madly in love... yet the guy looks like his face was rubbed on sandpaper. when she asks you if you think he's to die for, you answer, "oh, he's so lucky to have you!" one should never say, "OMG! when God spread beauty in this world, he must've been hiding in a cave!" that is not being false... that's just being sensitive to your friend's feelings. you never should insult someone's preferences 'coz that's equivalent to you saying they have bad taste right in their faces. unless, of course, you're sisters or super-duper-uber BFF's... then, censors off.;)

afterwards, my sister dropped this nugget of wisdom (oh how rare that happens... heehee) as we continued to chat. she basically told me that she doesn't waste her time with these kind of people... her exact words were "i drop them!"

and... i... never... thought... of... that! i could choose not to waste one more second of my life with people i don't really understand. i always thought that once you're friends, you should work on making that friendship stronger... no matter what... even if your personality clash or you barely have anything in common.

that strange realization dawned on me late last night. i was thinking about one of my best friends and that train of thought lead to another close friend. let's call her E. it's been years since i last heard from her. we barely had anything in common and though she was older than me by a few years, i always felt that i was the one looking out for her. to this day, i still have her email address and would sometimes write her though she never responds. i don't know. maybe she never uses it anymore or she never logs on. to me, we're still close friends and that if we do see each other again, we'll pick up where we left off.

my friend E could self-destruct like no other. i met her while she was a mistress of a separated but still very married man. she already had a son by an old boyfriend. then, she got pregnant and though it looked like a happy ending for her and the married man... it didn't happen. he actually gave her an STD, which confirmed that he was cheating on her. throughout this, i was there for her. then, she stopped contacting me and i couldn't find a way to reach her.

next thing i knew, the married man dumped her, got custody of their daughter and E is pregnant once again... this time, a different man. man #3 dumped her, she gave birth prematurely and, sadly, the baby didn't survive. she called me during the wake and i learned that she's with another man, yet again. someone younger, she said.

that's the last time i heard from her. she never wrote back, called or emailed me. i always wonder where she is right now... but as i look back, it was a friendship never meant to go beyond that. we were too different... and i couldn't bear watching her self-destruct over and over again.

so, as my sister said, i'm dropping her. and the rest of my "friends" who only learned how to take and not give. i'm making room for new ones. it was nice meeting you all.

-prescribed by-

@5:40 PM

-8 came for therapy session-