a bittersweet childhood myth

An acronym that I heard yesterday but very seldomly used now that I have grown up. B.F.F. stands for Best Friends Forever. Rings a bell? I think I last used this term in Primary 6. What best friends forever? They are all a lie. This is why I have stopped believing in B.F.F.

I really wondered what happened Mei Jun after we left primary school. I have totally lost contact with her and I have no news about her ever since. She sat behind me during examinations and we loved doing many things under the sun together. Singing, dancing, gossiping, eating....

We were really very very very good friends before our friendship soured over something very petty. Something probably very trivial that I can't even remember it now. It was a regret. Now, I still wonder how she is doing in her own independent life. How does she look like now? I will never forget her photogenic smile and rosy cheeks...

i saw the above posted on a friend's blog today. "Best friends forever". do people really believe that these days? i stop and look at all the people i've met over the years...the "best friends" i've made. where are they now? not a single one of my best friends now were with me from the beginning. everyone i know now are people who've only known me a few years. friendship was so trivial but eternal back in the primary school days. you sit and eat recess with someone, play with them for a while, and suddenly, you're best friends forever and ever. but come some little thing and the infamous "i don't friend you anymore." how little friendship was those days.

today i read this post from a friend. she's one of those whom i've known from the beginning. in fact, she was my first real "best friend". but now, the only contact i have with her is through her blog and maybe a christmas card once a year. she was my best friend. but i don't know her anymore. mei jun. she was another of my "best friends". the three of us did some crazy stuff together. but immediately after leaving CCPS, i don't know what happened to her. she went to a new school in sengkang and that was the last i heard of her. i wonder.

my friends now. the latest "best friends" i've lost. jacqueline and zheng ying. two of them were my 'sworn sisters'. how ironic. where are we now? we haven't spoken in ions. we haven't met in eternity. we who had pledged to be best friends forever. what happened to us?

sometimes i'm scared to think of the future. primary school was 10 years ago. now is the future of then. look what happened to 'forever'. how about 10 years from now? 20 years from primary school. will the friends i know and love now still be in my life? even now, we're in the same school but we barely get together anymore. i guess that's the cruelty of life. we're all bound to be alone. relationships are all temporal. and in the end, you die alone.

i miss those days of primary school. when you could say, "you're my best friend", "you're my sister" and really believe that it would be forever. the sweet innocence and faith that anything could last forever. i miss that innocence. now, reality is that life is cruel and the world is harsh. in the essentially capitalist world, nothing is yours forever. there will always be something coming that rips away the thing you cherish the most, shattering your childhood innocence forever. that's the only forever. destruction. what's broken can never be fixed. but what is whole can always be broken.

friends forever is a myth perpetuated since childhood. a sad bittersweet thing tied to innocence that's lost when we grow up.



mood: sad. (yes, irene is officially stressed and depressed)
listening to: lord of the dance - enya



p.s. i don't want sympathy. i just want a true 'forever'.