Leslie

Leslie just sent me an instant message to say hi… she’s so sweet. =)

I’ve known her for as long as I can remember. It’s amazing that we’re still close despite growing up in two different places with a 12-hour time zone difference. I remember how she looked like when was still little. We would see each other at our grandparents’ house whenever there was an occasion or when my parents would take me to her house to visit.

It’s funny looking at each other now and we’re both in our twenties, both concerned with our careers, talking about guys, frustrations, and making plans for the future. I remember a time when we would play with dolls, trade our stationery, pretend we were teachers and even have our own chalk board and set of colored chalk. While everyone else in my grandparents’ household seemed to be busy with other things, we were in a corner upstairs in our own little world where we could pretend to be anything we wanted. We were always content in that little corner of ours and we really didn’t care much what everyone else in the house was doing. I remember once my brother came up with this brilliant idea of throwing his slippers from the upstairs balcony to the garden downstairs and for some reason we thought it was very funny and we kept doing it the entire afternoon! We would throw our slippers, watch it fall down to the garden and then we would rush downstairs to retrieve it and we would do it again. Now when I think about it, I couldn’t remember why we found it so funny. I guess when you’re just a kid everything in life is just so funny and interesting. You could see something else in piece of paper or something totally exciting about a falling slipper. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful memory.

I remember the day that Leslie had first mentioned to me that she might be moving to the states permanently. It was in the afternoon and we were sitting upstairs in front of my grandparents’ bedroom. She was about 5 or 6 years old at the time and I, a year older. I was very sad and I remember asking her if she was sure and if she’s coming back. That’s the only thing I remember of about that conversation and try as I might I have no recollection of the day she left. Through the years we remained close by writing to each other and every couple of years she would come to visit. She would stay a week or two and we would try our best to spend the entire time together. I remember we used to write to each other using stationery from Gift Gate (preferrably Hello Kitty). We would tell each other of school, our friends, people we didn’t get along so well with, what songs we liked, what was new with our lives. Once in awhile we would send pictures too. As the years passed, the letters became scarce but she would always come to visit. Our conversatons gradually progressed to subjects consisted of boys, courses, frustrations, hopes, dreams…

I look at her now and even though we’ve grown up since, we are still the same little kids we were back then. We may have grown wiser at some points, we may have gone through different things while growing up and we may have different sets of friends, different sets of experiences and we truly are two diferrent people but what it comes down to is that she is and will always be one of the best persons I will ever know and I will always look at her as my best friend and my sister.