In unity there is friends!

You know how it is in school where in you have different sets of barkadas? Or that within your barkada you have a sub-barkada? Or that you're not necessarily a barkada but for some reason, you've formed yourselves into a group, just because. Well, my quasi-barkada, or clique if you may call it, met up for dinner last night and had a wonderful evening of catching up on each other's lives. It's been a long time since we've gotten together and we wanted to be thorough so we really went about our updates in an orderly manner; one after the other in clockwise fashion. Oh, don't imagine it as a stiff boardroom meeting where everything is formal and awkward. In fact, it was just quite the opposite. It was like we're back in high school again, a chattering bunch of teenage girls talking about anything and everything and suddenly bursting into laughter. But we did tackle some serious stuff and this, I guess, was what made last night most memorable.

As I was listening to my friends' stories of what they've been through these past years, I came to the realization that while I was going through the whole Shakespearean-the-pain-the-suffering, they too were going through their own tough ordeals. And an even greater realization was that we've all endured and emerged victorious. That in a way, these experiences have been instrumental in shaping us into who we are now - better, stronger and happier women.