Where Many Knows Your Name...

But they don't really know you.

There is sometimes this feeling of being a stranger which is definitely true when one is travelling but then sometimes you can feel really at home on the road.

What I am feeling now is that I am a stranger in a city which I called home for more or less half of my life. It is the feeling that you have no place to hang out to and the worse part is that you've got no one to hang out with.

This is the same feeling when one by one my friends started moving elsewhere.  I couldn't help myself from crying for some months after they left every time I remember the coffee time with them or even when I pass by the street where they used to live.

There was a time that I texted one of them that I hate them for leaving me here.  And then we ended up Skyping and they told me that I am so unfair.  They said, "if you are the one leaving us, we should be OK.  And now we left, you'll hate us.  It's unfair."  That I know.  I'm just not used to be the one being left behind.

So when they left, I tried to make new acquaintances in the hope that they'll become my friends.  That was hard.

I've met one whom I've spent lots of time with.  But this one is not staying either given that he was just here for one year to work for development.  It worked out fine until the day he's got to live.

I guess I was actually not planning to see him during his last day in Bacolod but I just could not help it.  What happened (maybe) as my defense is that I got so drunk and did not remember the last parts of the night until he brought me safe back to my place.

Dear friends are really hard to let go.  I know that they will still be my friends even if I don't see them often or even if I will never see them again but it is just plain hard.

There are many who knows me here by name but most don't really know me.