on bffs

i am seriously enjoying my co-workers right now.

 

before i transferred to my current boss, Big Dude (seriously, i marvel at the size of his hands each and every time – and yes, i do often wonder whether his large hands translates to, um, other correspondingly sized parts), and worked upstairs in the Master Suite, which is where all the Big Cheeses reside, i was only pseudo-content being up there.  the work load was intermittent, and i was not fond of that one other lower-level staffperson (the laos girl) in that same Suite.  like, we had started out as friends at first, but after a while, some of her tendencies started grating on me.  and i ultimately found it much bearable to not have anything to do with her at all.

 

contrast that with my current situation, working in a larger suite that has more hustle and bustle and is not an arena where the Big Cheeses come into very often.  and by Big Cheeses, i mean the peeps who must answer directly to the Governator and those other high-level homies.  down here, we bear the brunt of pressure from the Big Cheeses when something is needed on the double from our office, but on the whole, down here, we deal with the daily grind, the mundane, things that we hold our own selves accountable for without much interference from the higher-ups. 

 

what's really cool about working down on the first floor is that there are just more cool people around my age.  in fact, there are a couple of people whom i've found myself to be invariably connected to.  so it's been quite interesting to explore those connections and commonalities.

 

for instance, one of my office bffs is the viet girl – who happened to be in the same high school class as my younger sister.  and i discovered quite recently that there is another girl, three years my senior (i should really stop using the term "girl" to describe myself and other women my age, huh?  :-T), who happened to go to high school with and is in the same graduating class as my older sister.  it's kinda funky, when i think about it – like, what are the chances of that?!  but at the same time, it's not so funky.  if you grew up in sac-town, and you somehow end up coming full circle and forging some sort of life for yourself back in sac-town, you inevitable find yourself making these kinds of connections. 

 

is it the same everywhere?  is this a familiar trope?  all i know is that these are the kinds of connections i've kinda shunned and tried to stay away from.  mini-reunions are not my thing.  i guess i feel, in a rather innate way, that once you move on from a certain stage in your life, there's no point in returning to it.  certainly, it's fun to re-live the past and the memories, but . . . i dunno.  i only want one kind of momentum – the momentum of going forward.  there is no sense in dwelling in the past, in reliving past glories or – as is often the case with me – dwelling on things you could've done better.

 

i have lots of regrets, i think.  but it is not such a bad thing.  regrets help motivate me to make the next moments i live even better.

 

anyway, so i now have lots of bffs here at work.  i'd say i singlehandledly have the most bffs out of the entire building, with the exception of the Big Cheeses, but only because they have spent most of their careers here and are great friends with each other based on their shared experiences over the years.

 

for some reason, bffs come easily to me.  people always want to be my friend.  this was certainly not always the case.  :-T  in elementary school, i was pretty popular among my peers.  i was a tomboy – and was usually picked first or second for teams when we played basketball or kickball (hell, yeah, i was that good!  ;) ).  but that was only until the 6^th grade, when i ended up having to transfer to another school.  gringo school.  thus began my miserable existence.

 

i made a couple of friends at the new school.  but i was different.  and being different made me a target.  i can imagine all the things that set me apart from the other kids.  but the reason why i was picked on was not necessarily because i was asian; there were a couple of asian-american girls (one of whom was a really cute hapa, who somehow miraculously decided to become my friend – i wonder what ever became of her??) who were well-liked and –respected.  there was just something about me, though, that made me the target of some mean-spirited teasing and bullying.

 

junior high was better but not very memorable.  high school was much better.  i was one of those types who was involved in everything, every activity the school had to offer.  but still did not have many friends.  but that was okay.  during a time when cliques were everything, i had no clique myself.  sophomore year, students were allowed to opt to take a class during their lunch hour and have a total of 7 one-hour classes a day – 8, if you also opted for zero period in the earlier hours of the morning.  i opted for the 7 periods for each of my last three years of high school.  i was involved in lots of things, but i kept kind of to the background.  yet i became pretty popular myself – as in people knew me, but they didn't all necessarily like me.  but the latter were actually the minority.  by senior year, i had lots of buddies.  not bffs, though – just buddies.

 

that's why i find it interesting that, now, it's a whole other story.  it makes me wonder what i have, right now, that i didn't have back then.  i don't feel i've changed very much from when i was a gangly, scrawny nerdy asian girl with the glasses.  the glasses are gone, for the most part, and i am not as bony as i was back then.  but other than that, i myself haven't changed very much, personality-wise.

 

all i know is that i have a very precise definition of "friendship" – true friendship, that is.  and very few people have broken through the barriers to fit into that category.  and this definition was formed as a result of those earlier years when i could have used any friend or ally to ward off the sting of other kids trying to get me down but only a few had both the guts, foresight, and concern to stick with me through thick and thin.

 

but i'm sure that whatever i experienced, it was not as bad as what my younger sister experienced.  hers is probably a more interesting story – but it is not my story to tell. . . .

 

anyhow. . . .

 

not that there is any point in me rambling like this.  didn't i just say somewhere above that one should not live in the past?

 

:-T

 

but i guess i just wanted to illustrate the kind of meaning and baggage i'm inflecting when i use the term bff.  i don't mean to use the term lightly, and yet i'm sure i'm using it with a bit of irony as well.  so the truth is that i do love my co-workers.  they help make the work-day so much more bearable, and i have already begun hanging out with a few of them outside of the office, and also outside of the gatherings that we try to orchestrate for ourselves outside of work hours (next up: bowling night, this friday.  and no, i wasn't going to go, but yes, i got talked into it . . . .  :-T). 

 

but whether any of them will fall into the category of "true friends" remains to be seen.  if they don't, it won't be anything that they do that would cause it.  it's just me.  it's just that i have learned that true friends are rare.  and so over the years, i have let a number of friends i've made, since my high school years, fall by the wayside.  i have tended to let them slip through my fingers, as if i was carrying a handful of seeds within my grasp and letting the seeds scatter into the wind whenever a gust picked them up.  if you're lucky, after the wind blows, a few seeds will remain in your hand; these are the seeds that you keep close to you and that you can plant, grow, and cultivate on your own. 

 

but the others, you just let go.

 

and yet letting go is fine, too.  some day you will pass a growing plant on the side of the road and recognize it as one of the seeds you let drift from your palm.  it's always good to meet up again with those you let go and see how've been since last you met.  but because they are firmly planted in the ground at that point, and you still have a ways to go to continue on with your journey, you kind of just eventually have to pick up and move on and leave them behind.

 

yes, it makes for a solitary life most of the time.  and i suppose i do sounds rather jaded about people.  but all it takes is one burn for me to learn my lesson – and i've had quite a few burns up until this point.

 

i get teased a lot by people who notice how well i get along with and can befriend others.  they tease me because, i think, a small part of them is envious, because, for some reason, they just have a harder time getting to know others.

 

it really is not hard to get along with people, be nice, make 'em laugh.  you just need to be comfortable in your skin and be open to making connections with other people based on even the minutest of details.  you have to be willing to adapt your personality to any of them, regardless of what they throw at you, and be open-minded.  what helps for me is to remember that, in the end, we're all just the same, really – we're on the same journey, trying to make the most of our existence and of being alive, before we are all consigned to the same ultimate fate, death.  the facts may be different from person to person, but the tropes that each of our lives have experienced all run in the same veins tha are not really unique.

 

the thing is, i really am not any different than how i was when i was a tortured teenager who couldn't get a break from her peers, who kinda simultaneously respected me but also loathed me.  and i would be lying if i said that i did not like where i'm at, in comparison with most of them, right now.  i've achieved a hell of a lot more than most of them, with the exception of only one person that i know of (and he was my arch nemesis!  the popular golden boy ), despite not passing the bar exam.  all i know is that the very thing that helps me make friends and find bffs anywhere i go is the very thing that helped me get through those angst-ridden years: being able to look for those threads of commonalities.  i could see the things that made them no different than me – as well as the things that made me much better than they.

 

punks.

 

and this is why you don't mess with anyone, especially in high school.  in particular, you don't fuck with the quiet nerds.

 

they will always remember.

 

this is what drives them to ultimately succeed.  in the back of their mind, they will continually be striving for that one goal of kicking your ass every which way they can.  and then some.  they are not content to kick your ass just once, either.

 

;)

 

and yes, i've accepted the fact that i am kind of a special person.  and i'll be damned if i let anyone else in on the secret of awesomeness that is me.  i only share how awesome a chick i am with only the right peeps.

 

that means only a select few in real life -- and of course, my whole audience here on this blog.

 

thank goodness, none of you know me (i HOPE!!) in real life.

 

O_O

 

:-T

 

;)