Picture Memory | October 2012 — Fifteen Years of Friendship, Childhood Quarrels, Matching Schoolbags, and a Best Friend Named Shy Shane

Somewhere in the Philippines, there must be an unwritten law stating that two little girls who own identical schoolbags are destined either to become best friends or to spend the rest of their childhood accusing one another of copying. Fortunately, Shy Shane and I chose the first arrangement, although I suspect we would have been equally qualified for the second. We wore the same hairstyles, liked similar things, and occasionally dressed so much alike that somebody unfamiliar with us might have assumed our mothers were attempting to raise a matching set. We were eight years old, entirely convinced that friendship meant doing almost everything together, and blissfully unaware that the girl sitting beside us in Grade 2 would eventually become someone whose presence we would carry through school transfers, teenage misunderstandings, nursing examinations, and the beginning of adulthood.

I came across this photograph of us recently, and it made me smile longer than I expected. There is something peculiar about old pictures. They capture a moment that probably seemed perfectly ordinary when it happened, yet years later, they can summon an entire collection of memories that had been quietly gathering dust somewhere in our minds. A familiar face becomes a reminder of classroom conversations, childhood games, school uniforms, and the kind of laughter that once required almost no explanation. Looking at our photograph, I found myself thinking about how long Shane has been part of my life and how extraordinary it is that someone I met as a little girl remains my best friend fifteen years later.

Fifteen years. I can hardly believe it. That is long enough for hairstyles to change repeatedly, schoolbags to become embarrassing relics of childhood, and two girls who once spent their afternoons playing balay-balay to become registered nurses with actual professional responsibilities. I wonder what our eight-year-old selves would think if someone told them that one day we would wear nursing uniforms, pass the licensure examination, and begin navigating the complicated business of adulthood. I suspect we would be impressed for approximately five minutes before becoming distracted by the much more urgent question of whose turn it was to play the mother in our imaginary household.

Our friendship began when we were classmates in Grade 2–Daisy. I remember how naturally we became close, as though the universe had somehow arranged for two equally talkative children to occupy the same classroom. We had matching guroy-guroy bags, similar hairstyles, and enough shared interests to make separation seem like a thoroughly unreasonable suggestion. At that age, friendship was wonderfully uncomplicated. We did not discuss whether our personalities were compatible or whether the relationship contributed positively to our long-term emotional development. We simply liked spending time together, and that seemed like a perfectly sufficient reason to continue doing so.

Much of our childhood entertainment took place through games that required very little money and an enormous amount of imagination. We played at Christelle’s house, creating entire domestic arrangements through balay-balay, as though the responsibilities of managing a household were wonderfully entertaining rather than the complicated occupation adults occasionally complained about. We played tubig-tubig, went biking and skating, and somehow found enough excitement in ordinary afternoons to make the hours pass without our noticing. I think children possess an extraordinary ability to turn familiar surroundings into places of adventure. A house becomes an imaginary home, a game becomes an important competition, and the company of a favourite friend makes even the simplest activity worth anticipating.

I sometimes miss how little we needed to be happy during those years. There were no complicated schedules to negotiate, no professional obligations waiting the following morning, and certainly no discussions about which documents needed to be submitted for employment. Our greatest concerns usually involved whose turn it was to choose a game, whether somebody had broken an imaginary rule, or how much time remained before we were called home. We could spend an entire afternoon together and still feel slightly offended when the day ended. Friendship was something we experienced constantly, without understanding that growing older would eventually make shared time much harder to arrange.

Of course, our childhood friendship was not entirely free from drama. At nine years old, we experienced what I can only describe as our first major diplomatic crisis. It happened during a Christmas party, when Shane had become friendly with Jane, whom we called Baden, while I had developed a friendship with Kathy. Under ordinary circumstances, two children making additional friends should hardly qualify as a serious problem. Unfortunately, our nine-year-old understanding of loyalty apparently operated according to a rather strict membership policy. We became jealous, and what should have been a perfectly cheerful occasion turned into an unnecessary disagreement between two little girls who had not yet discovered that friendship was not a limited resource.

Looking back, I cannot help laughing at how seriously we must have taken the matter. We were behaving as though forming another friendship amounted to a formal declaration of betrayal, complete with injured pride and the possibility of permanently severed diplomatic relations. I imagine the adults around us would have found the disagreement rather amusing if they had understood its extraordinary importance in our minds. But childhood emotions can feel enormous, even when the circumstances appear small to everyone else. At nine, the possibility of losing your favourite friend to somebody new can seem like a genuine catastrophe.

Fortunately, our quarrel did not last. Whatever jealousy we felt eventually became less important than our desire to remain friends. We discovered that having other companions did not necessarily mean there was less room for each other. I doubt we expressed this understanding through a mature conversation about trust and emotional boundaries. We were children, after all, and probably settled the matter through the considerably more practical method of deciding we wanted to play together again. Still, the memory has become one of my favourites because it reminds me how early we began learning to navigate the strange little complications of friendship.

When we were around ten or eleven, our teachers apparently decided that allowing us to remain classmates was becoming an educational liability. We were talkative, enthusiastic, and perhaps not always as attentive to classroom discipline as responsible pupils were expected to be. Eventually, we were separated into different classes. I suppose the teachers believed that dividing us would restore a more peaceful atmosphere and encourage us to concentrate upon our lessons rather than continuing conversations that had no particular connection to the subject being taught. From an educational perspective, I can understand their reasoning. From the perspective of two best friends, however, the arrangement was an unnecessary interference with a perfectly satisfactory partnership.

Being placed in different classrooms did not end our friendship. We simply found other opportunities to spend time together, demonstrating that our teachers may have underestimated the determination of two children who had already developed several years of experience in being inseparable. I think that was one of the first occasions when we learned that friendship could continue even when our daily routines became different. We were no longer sitting in the same classroom throughout the day, but the connection remained familiar. There were still conversations to enjoy and memories to create outside the arrangements adults had made for us.

Then came the year I turned twelve, a period I remember for reasons far more significant than schoolbags or childhood games. I experienced a quarrel with a former classmate, and the disagreement affected my relationships with other friends. I remember feeling hurt when people I had considered part of my circle distanced themselves from me. At that age, belonging matters enormously, and being excluded can make even an ordinary school day feel uncomfortable. I was still learning how friendships could change, how misunderstandings could affect groups, and how painful it could be to discover that people did not always remain beside you when circumstances became complicated.

Shane stayed.

That is the part I remember most clearly. While other friendships were affected by the disagreement, she remained my friend. I cannot claim that our childhood understanding of loyalty was perfect or that the situation contained no complications beyond what I personally experienced. We were young, and young people can misunderstand one another just as easily as adults. But I remember how much her continued friendship meant to me during a period when I felt that others had withdrawn. Knowing that somebody still wanted to be my friend helped me feel less alone, and the memory has remained important long after the original quarrel lost its significance.

I think that experience changed the way I understood friendship. Before then, I had largely associated it with shared interests, games, conversations, and the pleasure of having someone to spend time with. Shane’s loyalty introduced something more substantial. A friendship could matter not only when everything was cheerful and convenient, but also when circumstances became uncomfortable. I began appreciating the difference between knowing many people and having someone whose presence remained dependable during a difficult time. At twelve, I probably did not possess the vocabulary to explain that distinction very elegantly, but I certainly understood how relieved I felt.

There is something remarkable about the memories that survive from childhood. I cannot recall every conversation we had or every game we played, but I remember how certain experiences made me feel. I remember the excitement of having a best friend who shared my interests, the ridiculous jealousy of our first quarrel, and the reassurance of knowing Shane had remained beside me when I needed a friend. Those memories have gradually become part of how I understand our relationship. They remind me that fifteen years of friendship cannot be measured simply through the number of photographs we have taken or the occasions we have celebrated together.

Our teenage years introduced another challenge when we began attending different schools. From approximately thirteen to sixteen, we could no longer depend upon the convenience of seeing each other throughout an ordinary school day. High school came with different classmates, new routines, and the complicated social world that teenagers somehow manage to create around themselves. I found the adjustment difficult because Shane had become the person I trusted most easily. Meeting new people was possible, of course, but developing the same level of familiarity required time, and I was not always comfortable opening up to others.

I sometimes think teenage friendships are particularly demanding because we are trying to understand ourselves while simultaneously learning how to relate to other people. We develop opinions, become sensitive to criticism, and occasionally interpret ordinary misunderstandings as evidence that the world has become personally offended by our existence. I certainly had my own uncertainties during those years. There were times when I found it difficult to trust people, especially after the experience of losing friendships earlier in school. Having Shane remain part of my life provided a familiar connection while everything else seemed to be changing.

Despite attending different schools, we continued finding ways to communicate and spend time together. Our friendship became less dependent upon sharing a classroom and more connected to the effort we were willing to make. I did not appreciate the significance of that change at the time, but looking back, I think it helped our relationship mature. We could no longer assume that we would see each other every day, so maintaining the friendship required a little more intention. We had separate experiences to talk about and different routines to understand, yet we still recognised one another as best friends.

Then, at seventeen, college arrived and apparently decided that our years of geographical inconvenience had been sufficient punishment. We found ourselves attending the same college and pursuing the same course. Nursing. Of all the possible directions our lives could have taken, we had somehow chosen a profession that would once again place us within the same academic world. I remember how delighted I was by the arrangement. After several years of studying in different schools, we were finally able to share another important stage of our lives. It felt almost comically appropriate, as though our friendship had developed a habit of finding its way back into the same classroom whenever circumstances allowed.

College was a very different experience from Grade 2–Daisy. We were older, our responsibilities were more demanding, and the subjects required considerably more concentration than the games we had enjoyed during childhood. Nursing introduced anatomy, physiology, clinical requirements, examinations, and the growing awareness that our future profession would involve real responsibilities towards patients. There were days when the amount of information we needed to study seemed unreasonable, particularly when several academic requirements demanded attention at the same time. I suspect our younger selves would have been horrified to discover that growing older involved so much studying and so little opportunity for uninterrupted play.

Yet there was something reassuring about having Shane beside me during those years. We were not simply classmates again; we shared a course, a room, and even a boarding house. From seventeen to twenty, so many aspects of our daily lives overlapped that our friendship became woven into the ordinary rhythm of college. We had similar academic responsibilities, encountered many of the same challenges, and understood the pressure of working towards a professional qualification. I cannot imagine that we agreed upon absolutely everything during those years, particularly because living and studying in close proximity gives people plenty of opportunities to discover one another’s habits. But I am grateful that we experienced that stage together.

Sharing a boarding house must have been an education of its own. Living away from the familiar routines of home requires adjustment, especially when students are learning how to manage schedules, responsibilities, and personal habits while trying to survive demanding academic requirements. I suspect we became even more familiar with one another’s peculiarities during that period. After all, friendship is considerably easier to romanticise when people meet only occasionally. Spending so much time together reveals the less glamorous details of daily life, including different routines, moments of impatience, and the extraordinary ability of students to become exhausted while still insisting they have more work to finish.

I like thinking about how far we had travelled from our childhood games. At eight, we played balay-balay and imagined the responsibilities of grown-ups. By seventeen, we were beginning to experience responsibilities that had very little in common with our earlier games. We had lectures to attend, requirements to complete, and professional expectations gradually becoming more real. There is something amusing about realising that the two little girls who once pretended to manage an imaginary household would eventually share a boarding house while preparing to become nurses. I wonder whether our younger selves would have considered the arrangement a wonderful adventure or complained about the lack of time available for playing.

Our common ambition was to become registered nurses. That goal accompanied us through the demanding years of college, giving our academic efforts a direction beyond the immediate pressure of examinations. Nursing school was not always easy, and I imagine both of us encountered moments when we questioned our abilities or wondered how much more studying would be required before we could finally call ourselves professionals. But we continued working towards the qualification, carrying with us the shared experience of having chosen a field that required patience, discipline, and a willingness to learn.

When we were twenty-one, we both passed the Nursing Licensure Examination.

Even now, writing that makes me smile. After years of attending the same college, studying the same course, and working towards the same professional goal, we had both achieved something important. We were registered nurses. The two girls from Grade 2–Daisy, who once shared schoolbags and occasionally caused enough classroom chatter to justify being separated, had become professionals in the same field. I cannot think of a more satisfying development in our rather unusual educational history. We had started by sharing childish interests and ended up sharing the pride of completing a demanding professional journey.

Passing the licensure examination was an achievement for each of us individually, but I appreciated knowing that we could celebrate it together. We had invested years of effort into nursing, and the result represented an important step towards the careers we hoped to build. I remember being proud of Shane and grateful that we had experienced another milestone within the same period of our lives. Our friendship had accompanied us through childhood, adolescence, and college, and now it was entering an entirely new stage in which our professional paths might gradually become less closely connected.

At twenty-two, that change was already becoming noticeable. We no longer saw each other as frequently as we had during our school and college years. Responsibilities were beginning to take us into different routines, and the convenience of being classmates or boarding-house companions was no longer part of everyday life. I missed the familiarity of seeing her regularly, particularly because we had spent so many years sharing ordinary moments without needing to arrange them in advance. Suddenly, meeting required more effort, and conversations had to fit around circumstances that did not always cooperate.

I suppose this is one of the first things adulthood teaches us about friendship. When we are children, relationships often develop through proximity. We sit beside someone at school, play in the same neighbourhood, or attend the same activities, and the opportunity to spend time together appears naturally. Later, responsibilities begin taking us in different directions. We become occupied with work, professional plans, and personal concerns, and maintaining friendships requires decisions that childhood rarely demanded. We must make time, communicate, and accept that closeness may begin looking different from the constant companionship we once enjoyed.

I am learning that seeing someone less frequently does not necessarily mean caring about them less. I would love to spend more time with Shane, just as we did when we were younger, but I understand that our lives will continue developing through circumstances that may not always allow it. What matters to me is knowing that the friendship remains important to both of us and that we continue finding opportunities to stay connected. Fifteen years have already introduced enough changes to show us that sharing the same physical space is not the only way a friendship can continue.

There is also something reassuring about having a friend who remembers versions of you that newer acquaintances have never met. Shane knew me before nursing school, before professional ambitions became serious concerns, and before the complicated questions of adulthood began occupying so much of my attention. She remembers the little girl with the matching schoolbag, the classmate who apparently talked too much, and the teenager who struggled when friendships became difficult. Those memories belong to a part of my life that cannot be reproduced through introductions or explained entirely through stories.

I think childhood friendships carry a particular kind of familiarity because they begin before we have developed the polished explanations we eventually use when presenting ourselves to the world. As adults, we often introduce ourselves through work, education, interests, or the circumstances that currently define our lives. Childhood friends remember us from a time when those categories were not yet important. They know the ridiculous games we enjoyed, the quarrels we once considered catastrophic, and the ambitions we formed before we understood how complicated achieving them might become.

Of course, knowing someone for many years does not automatically guarantee that a friendship will remain unchanged. People grow, develop different priorities, and sometimes discover that their relationships need to adapt. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. Fifteen years is a long time, and it would be unrealistic to expect two people to remain exactly as they were at eight. We have learned different lessons, encountered new responsibilities, and become more independent in ways our younger selves could not have imagined. What I appreciate is that our friendship has continued through those changes rather than depending entirely upon us remaining the same.

I also find myself smiling at the idea that we were once jealous of each other’s new friends. At nine, the situation seemed serious enough to cause our first quarrel. Now, I understand that having meaningful relationships with other people does not diminish the affection we share. A friendship does not need to claim exclusive ownership over another person’s time or attention to remain important. I hope Shane and I continue meeting people who enrich our lives while recognising that our own history will always give our relationship a particular character.

Perhaps the memory I return to most often is still the year when she stayed beside me after I had quarrelled with a classmate. I do not remember every detail of the disagreement, and with the benefit of growing older, I recognise that childhood conflicts can contain perspectives we did not fully understand at the time. But I remember the comfort of knowing that my best friend remained present. I think that is why I have continued valuing loyalty so deeply. It is easy to enjoy somebody’s company when everything is pleasant, but remaining considerate during difficult circumstances can leave an impression that lasts far longer than the original problem.

I hope I have been a good friend to Shane in return. It is one thing to appreciate someone’s loyalty and another to offer the same consideration when they need it. I know I am not always perfectly patient or available, and there may have been occasions when my own responsibilities or personality made friendship more complicated than necessary. But I want her to know that I value what we have shared and that I am grateful for the years she has remained part of my life. A friendship lasting fifteen years deserves more than an occasional affectionate comment beneath a photograph, although I suppose that is a perfectly reasonable place to begin.

Sometimes I imagine what our lives might look like several decades from now. Perhaps we will be older women discussing our careers, families, and the extraordinary changes that have taken place since our childhood. We may have different routines and responsibilities, and our conversations may involve subjects that our younger selves would have found terribly boring. I can imagine us laughing about Grade 2–Daisy, remembering how our teachers separated us for talking too much, and arguing affectionately about which one of us was responsible for the greater amount of classroom disruption. I suspect we would each possess a different version of the evidence, and neither would be particularly willing to surrender.

I also like imagining a future in which we have grandchildren who are curious about how long we have known one another. Perhaps they will be amused by the idea that their grandmothers once wore matching schoolbags, played balay-balay, and quarrelled over the possibility of having other friends. I would love to show them our old photographs and explain how our friendship continued through different schools, college, nursing, and whatever experiences might be waiting in the years ahead. I suspect some of the stories will sound wonderfully old-fashioned by then, especially the parts involving our childhood games and the effort required to remain connected before communication became as convenient as it is today.

There is something charming about the thought of two elderly friends sitting together and remembering people, places, and occasions that younger generations know only through stories. Perhaps we will laugh at how seriously we once took our teenage concerns or how certain we were that adulthood would be a straightforward arrangement. We may discover that our memories differ slightly, with one of us insisting that an event happened in Grade 3 while the other confidently places it in Grade 4. I imagine the disagreement will resemble our childhood quarrels, except that we will have several decades of additional experience in defending our opinions.

I hope we continue finding reasons to laugh together, even when life becomes demanding. Friendship should be able to accommodate serious conversations, certainly, but I would hate for us to lose the familiar humour that made our childhood companionship so enjoyable. There is something comforting about being with someone who understands your jokes, remembers your embarrassing habits, and can remind you of a ridiculous incident you had almost managed to forget. I suspect Shane possesses enough material from our shared history to keep me humble for the rest of my life.

Looking back at our fifteen years, I find it remarkable how much of our friendship developed through ordinary moments rather than extraordinary occasions. There were classroom conversations, afternoons spent playing, brief quarrels, school changes, and shared experiences during college. We did not spend every year attending spectacular celebrations or travelling to remarkable destinations. Much of our history consists of the everyday activities that gradually become important because of the person who accompanied us through them.

Perhaps that is what makes the photograph meaningful to me. It represents far more than the particular moment when somebody pressed the camera button. Behind it are matching schoolbags, familiar hairstyles, childhood games, an unfortunate Christmas-party disagreement, teachers attempting to restore classroom discipline, and a friendship that continued despite attending different high schools. There are also memories of nursing school, shared accommodation, academic challenges, and the joy of knowing we had both passed the licensure examination. Fifteen years of experiences have gathered behind an image that might appear perfectly ordinary to someone who does not know our story.

I suppose that is the strange beauty of photographs. They reveal very little about the history between the people standing beside one another, yet they can carry enormous meaning for those who recognise the faces. A stranger might see two young women smiling for the camera. I see the girl who played with me at Christelle’s house, became jealous of my other friendships, and remained beside me during a difficult childhood experience. I see the teenager I missed while we attended different schools and the college companion who eventually shared my ambition to become a registered nurse.

Most of all, I see my best friend.

There are many things I hope for in the coming years, including professional opportunities, meaningful experiences, and the chance to continue developing the life I want to build. I know those ambitions may eventually require difficult decisions or take me farther from some of the people I have known for years. But I hope distance never becomes an excuse for forgetting the relationships that helped shape my earlier life. I want to continue making time for Shane, even when our schedules become complicated and meeting requires more effort than it did during our school days.

I do not expect our friendship to remain perfectly unchanged. Fifteen years have already taught me that people grow and circumstances develop in unpredictable ways. There may be periods when we speak frequently and others when responsibilities make our conversations less regular. I hope we continue approaching those changes with understanding rather than assuming that friendship must always look exactly as it did before. The bond we share has already survived classroom separation, different schools, and the transition into professional life. I would like to believe we can continue adapting as the years bring new experiences.

I began this entry thinking about the matching schoolbags that helped define our friendship when we were eight. It seems rather funny that something so ordinary could become one of the details I remember most affectionately. At the time, we probably cared about having the same things because it made us feel closer. We wore similar outfits, enjoyed the same games, and wanted to share as much of our childhood as possible. Years later, we have begun following our own paths, yet I find that the friendship remains meaningful without requiring us to match every detail of our lives.

Perhaps that is how I know we have grown. We no longer need identical bags, the same classroom, or a shared boarding house to recognise one another as best friends. Our relationship has developed beyond the circumstances that first brought us together, carrying memories from each stage into the next. I am grateful for that continuity, particularly because so much else changes as we become adults.

To my dearest Shy Shane, thank you for the fifteen years of friendship, the laughter, the childhood nonsense, and the loyalty that has remained one of my favourite memories of growing up. Thank you for being the girl who shared my games, survived our ridiculous nine-year-old jealousy, and continued finding ways to remain close when school arrangements placed us apart. Thank you for accompanying me through college and sharing the excitement of becoming registered nurses. I am proud of what we have accomplished, and I hope the coming years bring opportunities for both of us to continue pursuing our ambitions.

I miss you, Bestie, and I hope we see each other soon. There are still conversations to catch up on, photographs to take, and probably several childhood stories that deserve to be remembered with considerably less seriousness than we originally gave them. I am grateful that our friendship has already lasted fifteen years, but I hope this is only a small portion of the memories we will eventually share.

And if we are fortunate enough to grow old together as friends, I hope we retain enough of our childhood personalities to make the experience entertaining. Perhaps we will sit somewhere comfortable, talk about our families, and remember the days when we were two little girls in Grade 2–Daisy, completely unaware that our matching schoolbags had introduced us to a friendship that would continue long after we had outgrown them.

I can almost imagine our grandchildren asking how long we have known each other. Perhaps we will look at one another, smile at the absurdity of counting so many years, and attempt to explain a friendship that began before either of us understood what adulthood would eventually involve. I hope we will have enough memories by then to keep the younger generation thoroughly entertained, particularly when we begin discussing our childhood quarrels and the teachers who apparently believed separating us would solve the problem of our excessive conversations.

And when they finally ask how we managed to remain friends for so long, I hope we will remember that it was never simply because we liked the same things. We grew up, attended different schools, followed our ambitions, and encountered circumstances that required us to make an effort. We did not always occupy the same classroom or live under the same roof, but we continued recognising one another as important parts of our lives.

For now, fifteen years is a wonderful beginning. I am grateful for every stage of our friendship, including the silly quarrels and the years when distance made seeing one another difficult. They have become part of a story I would not want to exchange for a more perfectly organised childhood.

After all, not everybody gets to grow up alongside the girl who once owned the same schoolbag, survived the same nursing examinations, and knows enough embarrassing stories to make an entire autobiography deeply inconvenient.

Thank you for the friendship, Shy Shane. Fifteen years and counting, and I still cannot believe our teachers thought putting us in separate classrooms would be enough to keep us apart. I miss you, Bestie. Love you!

October 2012 | Picture Memory: Treasured Best Friend — From Grade 2–Daisy to becoming registered nurses, fifteen years of shared memories with Shy Shane.

— Anj, still your childhood partner in crime, former owner of a matching guroy-guroy bag, and a best friend who hopes we will still be laughing about our Grade 2 adventures when we are old enough to have grandchildren listening.