Friends

Yesterday, a friend of mine left school.

He wasn't a very close friend, although nowadays I don't really know how to define that word anymore. I first met him second semester freshmen year. We were never really formally introduced, but he was at Wilder a lot, and since I worked at the front desk, we somehow became friends in that funny way that things happen sometimes.

This year, I was in Third World Co-op with him. At the beginning of fall semester, when we were still having game night regularly, he would come by sometimes too. He was one of those people that I wanted to get to know better, hang out with more, but never got around to it because school, work, life and so many other things seemed to be more pressing at hand.

Spring semester, I cooked Friday lunches with him. The way he cooked amused me - he was always very precise, very careful in his preparation of food, whereas I lived up to my mom's philosophy of cooking - 'agak-agak', 'cincai' and 'luan luan lai' :P

A little digression: Americans love to ask you how you're doing. It's always at the beginning of every conversation - what's up, how you doing, how are you. Yet it's not always a real question - it's sometimes so much easier to say 'good', 'ok' and leave it at that. Anyway, back to the topic: one Friday we were cooking lunch, and of course we had the usual 'how are you doing' conversation. For the millionth time that semester, I said 'not so great', because that was my very honest answer.

Somehow that led to a conversation about how crappy I was feeling this semester, how unmotivated I have been, my lack of focus in everything, my inability to concentrate, the feelings of hopelessness, my increasing anti-social attitude towards the world. He also shared how he was doing, which was amazingly similar to what I was going through. And I also learnt some things about him that I never learnt about before.

And then just this Friday night, he told me he was leaving.

I didn't know exactly how I felt. I was sad to see him leave, but sad wasn't the right word for what I felt when I found out. It was more like.. a sort of resigned feeling. A feeling of lost opportunities. Even a slight feeling of panic.. will I end up like him?

I went to his room and talked for nearly 2 hours on Friday night. It was the first time we really talked. It was also the first time I'd talked to somebody and realized that I could very well be the person I'm talking to, the first time I really truly could say I knew, on some level, what he was going through.

He also showed me some of his photos from college etc. I was struck by how different he looked each year, and how different other people that I knew looked too. Isn't it strange how people change?

And so.. he's gone now.

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Sometimes I wonder why this is happening to me, why am I withdrawing from everything, why am I seeking solace in eating uncontrollably, which then makes me fat, which then only makes me more miserable?

Why is it that I seem to have lost who I was?