Meet My Crutch(es!)

Everyone needs a support group. You know, a group of buddies with whom you can share everything and anything, a group preferably of mixed gender, background, and personality para balanced ang discussions ninyo tungkol sa mga bagay bagay in your lives? This group is my support group. We've been friends since the year 2000 when we were all part of the consulting division of (now-dead) Arthur Andersen and assigned to the same project. Tonight we got together at Gilligan's, a grillery along Pasay Road in Makati. It looks like just a small dinner, but believe me, this "small party" required planning and orchestration that took almost a week to finalize because of their busy schedules (I wasn't that busy yet because school has only just begun).

fort boni project team reunion at gilligan's: edelle, allan, stanley, aileen, joy and yeyet

Ngayon hiwa-hiwalay na kami: I'm teaching at UP, Edelle and Allan are both at PNB, Joy manages her own farm in Laguna, Stanley's with the family business, and Yeyet's at Magnus (where Edelle and I used to work, by the way) and we've all come a LONG LONG way since our Arthur Andersen days. I have to say though that everytime we meet up, either for lunch or dinner or coffee, it's as if time has stopped and it's five years ago and we're once again laughing (usually at joy ;-p) in our small project room at fort bonifacio devt corp (our client at the time).

Hindi sa nagdadrama ako dito pero these five people are among the very few who i feel really, REALLY know me. I guess the feeling is the same among all of us. Friendships like these are rare, I know... I've never met people who are as frank with me about me as they are. Sometimes they make me realize things about myself I was previously blind to. Hindi lang sila crutch, actually, para silang mirrors (mag-Boy Abunda's hiwagang salamin ba?). They ask me questions I would never ask myself, and sometimes they give me answers I don't want to hear but I need to. In the five years we've known each other siguro natanong na lahat ng tanong na matatanong during our conversations and heart-to-hearts... everything but this question: between Allan and Stanley, sino si Charlotte at sino si Stanford???!!

allan and stanley

fun fearless females

yuck mukhang magasawa... remember: hands off kay Stanley, ok?!