Staying and leaving

(Because I promised I would write about the people who matter. And because words are all I really have.)

THERE ARE five of us in my room tonight. Sleep is far from our minds as we go over the papers strewn on my bed, trying to make sense of the pages that make up our senior thesis. It is way past midnight. It has been a long day and our brains are burned out way past the point of caring what our heads hit as we promise ourselves a short power nap before we continue. I am lost in thought, however, as I think of the four girls in the room and what they mean to me and the fact that our lives have been punctuated by staying and leaving.

There’s the girl beside me, the first one. She is my best friend though we don’t really label ourselves as such. She is my complete opposite and we have had the nastiest fights that sometimes lasted weeks, but at the end of the day, she is the one who knows me best, the one who can calm me down and cheer me up, the one who listens without judgment to my stupid stories and puts a smile on my face if she can’t solve my problems.

Her dad works in another country and comes home once or twice a year. She’s been moving from house to house and country to country for as long as she can remember. She has never gotten used to people staying in her life. It’s probably why she has never gotten used to just staying anywhere, either. I know I can’t ask her to stay in one place, so how can I ask her to please remember me someday?

The other one, she’s small but feisty. I love her brash opinions and frank comments. We have done a lot of things together, from shopping to homework to passing notes during Economics class when we think the teacher isn’t looking. She doesn’t know it, but I think she will go a long, long way. Sometimes I think she might rule her own country someday, one where there’s always a size Small at Forever 21.

The next one, like the first, has a day who is always away. But she dreams of something bigger, something farther. She plans to go to some other place after graduation. She plans to travel all over the world because she loves to go places—Paris, Hong Kong, Japan, the list is endless. How do I tell her that as much I would love to see her go places, the oceans separating us will be as deep as my loneliness over missing her?

Then there’s the seemingly quiet one. She is not quiet really, not one bit. All through the years I have known her to be dedicated, hard-working and fiercely loyal. This not to say she is one-dimensional. I am constantly amazed by her photography, her ability to immortalize people and places and things. I am also amazed by her willingness and readiness to go anywhere, anytime.

She is, for lack of a better term, a country girl turned into a city woman. She has grown so much in four years, no longer completely the shy girl she was before and I guess it was being semi-independent that helped form her. Like the one before her, she too wants to go places—Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, etc.—but I know she will go even farther, and I am not just talking about places. How do I thank her for her endless patience and friendship that have withstood scary bus rides in the wee hours?

And of course, there’s her, but I don’t want to call her the tall one because there’s so much more to her than her height. Talk of loyalty, and she is probably one of the people who invented the word. I will never forget the way she grew into her confidence, the way her talents blossomed, and the way she beams when she gets recognized for them.

She is the only one among us who hasn’t been out of the country. Funny, but although she is the one who has spent the most time here she doesn’t look like it. She dreams of going to another country where people look like her, and will not stare at her because she is so tall. How do I tell her that she is much more than what she thinks she is?

And then there’s me. Neither here nor there. Born and raised in one country, but supposedly belonging to another. I dream of going to other places, too, but I also dream of going home. I wonder what they will think of me months from now when I look at our yearbook photos with a smile on my face but tears in my eyes.

Our lives are punctuated by staying and leaving—by the people who have left us, by the people who have stayed for us, by the people we have left and by the people we have stayed for. Things will be different from this moment, I have no doubt. Somewhere along the way, things are going to happen and things won’t be the same again. If our lives are constantly in motion, how do I tell them that even if I know leaving is inevitable, there’s always going to be a part of them that will always stay with me?

Graduation is coming fast. I think of our friendship, of our hardships, our fights, our high moments, our low moments, our adventures, our silly jokes and weird anecdotes. There’s still so much to do but too little time to do it. How do I say what I need to say before time runs out?

I honestly don’t know. What we have is this moment, this night, this laughter and these smiles. And you know what? Right now, it is all I could ever want.

Jasmine N. Shewakramani, 20, is a 4th year AB Mass Communications student at St. Scholastica’s College Manila.