Admittedly, one of the reasons why migrating became difficult at the beginning was because of the simple fact that we left a lot of established friendships back home.
I found myself getting homesick especially during the times I wanted to rant, ask advice or share joyful stories to my friends. I missed laughing my heart out tears came out from my eyes.
It took me sometime to realise that I needed to move on. I found myself guarding and protecting my old friendships in favor of the newer ones. I have been here for almost five years and in that span of time I have been actually weighing down those people I have met and was checking which among those newly formed friendships I can nurture and keep. Sadly some "bad" points always come up. I'm not saying I'm perfect but I wanted to cultivate friendships that will bring out the best in me, influence me to become positive and inspire me. People who can teach me. People who can share and not just take every time. People who can help us raise our kids. People who can support us and see us as is, no competitions. Actually, the last one is the biggest turn off for me. Being migrants you can't help but sense if one is trying to compete of what you have and what your family can get especially during the sharing of stories. Ayaw papatalo. People who only know you when they have a dilemma or when they need something (yes I know friends should be people whom you can always count on, pero nakakainis when you see them with their other friends pag happy sila or my celebrations sila, pero nada sa iyo unless they are asking for a favor).
Last Christmas, I found myself slowly forming the very short list. It actually included cleaning my FB list too. I removed from my FB friends those people who only radiate negative energy. Those people I can actually say, "walang akong paki at walang paki sa akin/amin." Those people who think they are the best, the grammar geniuses (just because they are well-read and are English teachers! yun na! lol)
Seeing a lot of reunion pictures being posted in FB actually inspired me to start acting now. Most of my co-migrants have already started forming friendships and my fear is that by the time I'm ready, I might end up not having any. I am particularly happy to see these group of friends based here, they have long known each other for 10+ years. I guess they have seen each other's family grow and the kids too. In that span of 10+ years you can see that they have established their yearly traditions. Every year, especially during the Christmas season, one family hosts the gathering. Umiikot sila ng bahay which I think is good. This year they had themed parties during their birthdays. Everyone was in even the dads! No killjoys! I can't really say I'm ready for costumes, and so is Papa A, but the camaraderie and joy radiates from the smiles on their faces.
This year started with me and Alvin getting invited to one of our good friends' home here in Sydney and it felt good! It was so relaxing and the stories just kept coming up. We actually felt we needed to do that more often.
I actually am not comfortable in big groups. I may be super talkative, but believe it or not when it's a big group and I really don't know personally each one of them (ex. fb friends lang kami) I have the tendency to be quiet. I am not comfortable sharing my stories with them. I will be super talkative if it's an intimate gathering of friends. For this big reason alone, I plan and I'm praying that this year, I will be successful in cultivating the "small" friendships I have now on my very short list and hopefully in years' time, I will be a much happier and a more positive person because of them.
P.S. Me cultivating and nurturing these newly formed friendships doesn't really mean I'm letting go of the ones I have back home. I guess you understand when I say it's been too long already and I need to move on. I'm sure they have. But we know deep in our hearts that the friendship is there and we have each other's back. I guess this is all part of growing up :-)
