Frappuccinos with My High School Best Friend

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon. I was just at home surfing the internet and watching some Korean dramas online. I received a text message from my high school best friend inviting me to have coffee at Starbucks. So we met. The last time we saw each other was last January together with some of our high school classmates.

It was just the two of us. We talked about her breakup with her boyfriend of almost 4 years and my marriage to my work and graduate studies. We also reminisced about our high school and college years.

Back when we were in high school, whenever we were required to write an essay about how we see ourselves 5 or 10 years from now, we envisioned ourselves with stable jobs and families of our own. Well, we both have stable jobs. But they are not the kind of jobs we envisioned. We are both single. She was supposed to get married next year but things didn't work out with her boyfriend. Me? I have other priorities and not even dating. So the family thing is still uncertain. Our focus right now is to work hard and save so that we'd be financially stable and independent if we get married some day.

It somehow amazes us that we turned out this way. We never thought that we'd experience quarter life crisis. We didn't anticipate that love could be that complicated. We never thought that to be promoted in a job, you need to work really hard and experience pain. We expected that life would still be simple. We were so naive. But even though we are in our mid-twenties, we are still dreamers. We still hope that whatever we wrote back then would still come true. We are living our lives to the best we could and making the most out of what is given to us.

I really had a great time with her. Even if we led separate lives during our college years, we still felt comfortable with each other. We both changed a lot. But the friendship stayed the same. Just like what we said in the middle of our conversation, guys come and go but true friends remain.

A Dinner with Middle-aged Couples

Today is the birthday of my boss. I had lunch and dinner at their house. I was supposed to go home immediately after work but my boss invited my co-teachers and I for dinner. So we went.

I noticed something at the dinner table. There were my boss and her husband, two of my co-teachers with their respective husbands, and me. They were talking about stuff only married people could relate to. They were also talking about things/events that happened during their younger years (they are all in their 40's). While me, a mid-20's single lady, just sat, ate, and listened.

Throughout the dinner, I was silently wishing that their attention would not focus on me since I stuck out like a sore thumb. If that happened, they would surely try to set me up again with random guys. I totally hate matchmaking. But I guess I didn't wish so hard because they mentioned this certain guy they have been wanting me to meet since February. I just smirked and looked the other way. I'm totally not interested.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate their company. They are actually fun to be with even with the existence of a generation gap. But I wish they'd be more sensitive. It's not like they didn't go through young adulthood.

I miss having dinner with friends.