Missing Friends

 This morning, I got a memo that I have to attend a seminar in August as second part of a seminar I attended last year.  Now I have to attend it alone though, since the officemate/friend that I attended it with the last time has already asked for a transfer of department…  I started thinking of my other friends… I have lost contact with most of my friends… Some of them have gone to other countries to seek employment there and some of them are still here yet I have somehow lost contact with.

I suddenly realize that most of my social life right now evolves around my family and officemates.  And on the rare occassions that I go out without my husband, I usually go out for a must-do shopping or to run errands.  Have I completely lost touch of what used to be a fairly active social life?  I mean I could not be categorized as a party-goer before but I usually have nights out with friends on fridays or we go out of town during weekends while I barely have time to even talk about going out now.  I'm not blaming my being married, because I think I've lost touch of most of my friends way before I got married…  Am I turning out to be a friendless introvert?  Hopefully, not!  Maybe I'm just still adjusting to having a house to run in addition to a tiring work schedule.  Maybe I'm just overreacting to the slight lost of communication with several of my friends.  Maybe I've just been a bit preoccupied with other things lately that i fail to recognize the importance of keeping in touch with others.  Whatever… All I know right now is that I miss my friends…

  I remember this was one of the last pictures of me and Maricel while eating thumbs up ice cream in Las Piñas.  Now I very rarely get texts or e-mails from her which is understandable considering that she's probably super busy working in Dubai.  Besides she probably spends most of her free time wanting to talk to her kids who are still here in the Philippines.  But that doesn't erase the fact that I miss her… Her comedic comments, her valuable pieces of advice, her company…  There are also other friends I miss like Vhangie who is super busy taking care of her two girls and barely has time to text me (but I appreciate the unexpected text messages once in a while).  There's also Juliet who got married last year also but has been living in the US for six years or so already.  And now Christie (fondly called Tetay) is awaiting her go signal to leave for Riyadh any day now…  Maybe it's time to start socializing again and make the most of the friends I still have now… I know the others that I've mentioned are still my friends no matter how far or out of touch they may be but it's good to have friends whom you can talk to face to face and be with to see a movie or go malling or to visit once in a while.