Summerfriends.

Circa 1995. Looking like real nerds in this pic.

I’ve always had good memories of summers. Often, my summers were spent studying some ‘art’ form, whether it be visual, martial, or dance; traveling; or simply going out with friends. I read, I hung out with my cousins…yup…summers form one of the best memories of my childhood.

One of those good things that came out of my summers was being a part of a barkada from one summer workshop I attended. We called ourselves ‘summerfriends’. (I know, it’s soooo original) That’s our picture above, circa 1995. During summer of ‘95, we painted murals, took photography classes (or at least tried in vain to listen to the teacher), hung out a lot, and gossiped about this ‘mean’ girl who wore really skimpy shorts (in 18º temperature!) to class. We listened to E-heads, Rivermaya, and the Cranberries belting out ‘Zombie’ in the background. We talked about high school/grade school crushes, first kisses, and first boyfriends.

It’s amazing how one summer could be the start of something really nice. Ten years later we are still friends! Yun nga lang, I could only count on two hands the number of times we really went out..hehe. Siguro make that 4 hands--hindi naman kami ganun ka-loser.^^;; We usually meet during summers, Christmases, debuts…hmmm…you could call us ‘holidayfriends’. Since we don’t meet that often, we usually notice the big changes in each other’s lives: for example, who’s going out with whom, who gained weight, what happened to the guy we saw last Christmas, who had a baby (yup, we have two ‘summerfriends’ kids), where did we all go for college, etc.


Circa 2001. Celebrating Roanne’s birthday.

Without fail, there we usually meet up at least once a year to keep in touch and to be aware of what’s happening with each person in our barkada. However, last year, we weren’t able to really meet up as in one collective group. We were all busy with work.

However, the chance for us to meet came very recently. We just attended the wedding of one of my “summer” friends. She’s the girl at the leftmost side of the pic circa 1995. Up to now, I still have a hard time believing that one of who I consider barkada already got hitched. But, anyway, she’s now a mrs. and I guess I should start the countdown on who would be next to embrace married life.

We are all really happy for her -- I honestly believe she found the right guy, (even at first impression her last boyfriend seemed like a jerk) and I’m excited to become a ninang to their firstborn child and third summerfriends baby.

…ah…to be wed during summer.