Mumbling...

Two days ago...

I was having my dinner with a friend and we talked about our path in life and how it would always be influenced by the will of our parents.

Something hit me hard that very moment. I don't know why and how.

I miss them.

Somehow I want them to influence me. To tell me where to go. To guide me through this void. To give me some light in this dark room.

Somehow I need to see them again. To hear their voice outside my head instead from within. To feel their touch instead of remembering.

Somehow I feel the urge to talk with them. To spit all my troubles instead of swallowing them. To argue my thoughts instead of accepting them.

Somehow I crave to feel their presence. To call them and say that I'll pass by next weekend. To be called and reminded to have my dinner when I'm working late.

Now they are deep within me and they still help me through thorny path, indeed. But still...

... I want to pray with them, not for them.

I'm sorry.

On friendship...

Today two people whom I consider as my bestfriends would leave this country in few hours. They had a long adventurous journey behind them and they decided to end the trip in Indonesia. Today would be their last day being tourists. They said, dixit, It's sad but we're happy too. The paradoxal feeling that every backpackers must have at the end of their trip.

Anyway.

I knew them since high school. I still remember the day I met Yann. He was just another guy from the other class. Back then, the artistic major still had two classes. I didn't know him at all. Little did I know that the handshake would extend until today. We hung a lot back then. He was the guy who taught me how to roll cigarettes (and joints at the same time), he showed me the joy of having a pastis in a sunny afternoon... We played guitar until dawn, singing the same songs over and over again, often out of tunes, since we were SUI (Singing Under Influence). I still remember those days as they were yesterday. Then Andrea came along. She hooked up with Yann at the end of our years on high school. And they are still together until now. They are the perfect couple. Andrea was a hippie back then, very in contrast with my usual chic-wannabe appearance. But we could talk for hours about everything. They were and still are perfect discussion companions.

That made me think last night after our last discussion in Jalan Jaksa over few bottles of beers, surrounded by sleepless tourists and shady prostitutes. I realized that real friendship has no bounderies. They were people that I don't see in my daily life. Maybe an email once in a blue moon. But when we're together, it's just like they were never far from me. It was just like they lived in Jakarta. Strange, but true.

Strange, because they didn't change at all. Strange, because the discussion flew just like that, without any awkwardness whatsoever. Strange, because with them, I felt out of place from my usual daily life. Maybe it's called blast from the past.

That's why I could probably say that our friendship is genuine. Because we don't need to call each other everyday, to give news every single month, to pretend that we care, to try to be always present... no, we don't need that. We have our own life, we might not even think about each other yet somehow we know that somewhere, we have a friend we could count on.

It's strange. But it's quite beatiful.

Our goodbye last night wasn't what you would call dramatic. They were no tears, they were no empty promises... it was a simple and casual goodbye. With a certain assurance that if we were going to meet again one day, it would be the same story.

Now they're going home. They would live their life, moving on and I don't doubt it, would not think that much of me. But I know that I could always call them my friends.

If there was something that I forget to tell them last night, it would be "thank you for your friendship"

- Bon voyage, Yann et Andrea... la prochaine fois je vous payerais le pot... et vous laisserais gagner aux billiards.