Not The Same Anymore, Still Us: A Quiet Reunion Before The Year Ends

I think I have manifested too much this year-end vacation, of which I hoped to have surprises every day before the year ends and make this vacation more memorable than last year. I have too many things to share soon, but I’ll have to take it slowly and individually so I can make a good story. Year-end season is just like Christmas. It brings nostalgia and a quiet recollection of your past life. It depends on us how we would handle it—if we want it removed immediately in the present or give it a chance to be remembered. Speaking of remembering, it could be a thing, an event, or a person.

And just last week, I had the latter—but in plural form. In simple words, I met people that became part of my growth and hundreds of funerals since 2019. I haven’t seen them for at least two years before last week, and meeting them again for another chance in another version of me created this feeling of poignancy and happiness. Poignant to know we are never the people we met before, and happy to know we have outgrown some things that needed to be outgrown.

For the sake of introduction, these people I was with are my original friend group since high school. I never met them for two years since 2023, I think, and the year-end vacation made some way for us to meet again. I would say there are still things that stayed in our friendship, but most of what we had before are gone. They outgrew me in some parts, and I outgrew them in things I no longer carry as they do. We met in a local cafe shop named MilkT and had some walk along the famous Lapyahan shore just like the old times.

MilkT is a cafe in the town of San Remigio that is newly established in our town but already has a branch in the municipality of Daanbantayan. In a nutshell, this cafe offers a lot of food and beverages, some of which are internationally influenced. They serve popular international puddings and foods like their famous mango sticky rice from Thailand that made the cafe interesting to visitors. Unique soda fizz, frappe, cheesecake drinks, and milk tea are offered along with meals like garlic pepper beef, carbonara, beef pepper rice, and chicken tenders. There are many offers this year-end season to promote the store, which attracted many customers these days.

We met in the cafe by 2 pm as planned. You can see the four of us in the photos above, and these people helped me navigate my teenage life ridiculously. We were just kids thinking like kids way back then, but they made my teenage years memorable and easier to follow in trail. Although I can say I hope I never did those things we did before. Lol. This time, we sat again in the same room, same bodies, but different versions. If way back then we always talked about our crushes, this time we talked about our dreams and goals after graduation. Our old way of conversing with burst laughter turned into a serious aura while we sat at the table with our knees crossed. But we still smiled from time to time; I’d just say we became more serious in life.

We ordered good food and drinks and talked while waiting for them. It took 30 minutes before they arrived at our table. Two of them had milk tea, while my closest in the circle and I ordered meals—beef garlic and a chicken something I don’t know the name of. I ordered an Oreo and Cream Frappe to complement my meal. The food was great, although at first I could not understand its taste since it was my first time eating it in this more quality version. It was perfectly cooked, savoury, and not corrupted. Lol. The prices were reasonable, and I actually came back to this cafe this week to try something new, but I’ll share it in another blog since it also has its own story.

We talked for hours, and after that we left the cafe to walk along the shore of Lapyahan, where we saw many people on standby for sunset. But sunset never arrived that day. Still, the view was stunning and memorable. We remade the photos we had when we were in junior high school for the record. Comparing the two photos made me emotional to think that we have grown so much and are doing fine. Same people, different versions of ourselves, but one heart.

It was a very perfect reunion for me, although fleeting, because when the night came we parted our ways since we had many things to do in our own worlds. Worlds we no longer fully know of each other, but ones we navigate with shared memories. Even if I live in a new world now, I still remember them, and them being stored in my memory helps me achieve the things we dreamt of in our younger years.

Maybe that is what year-end really gives us—not the chance to go back, but the chance to see how far we have come. And sometimes, that quiet reminder is enough to carry into the coming year.