未完待續 To Be Continued ~ Celebrating 10 years of friendship

An occasion brought me to Taiwan last month which culminated into a 10-year reunion with a bunch of gal friends. Even though some of us have not seen each other in years, it felt like yesterday when we first met in a KTV room in Ximending. That’s right, that was our first meeting. In 200X (because I forgot when was that), I went alone to Taiwan to meet these ‘new friends’ that I got to know via the Internet. Our friendship was first forged in Yahoo chatrooms and BBS (things of an era past), when the Internet was not yet a hunting ground for predators. The world was still relatively simple then.

In the 10 years, we met each other only occasionally, but our friendship grew from strength to strength as we share our lives with each other, beyond the superficial interests that first brought us together. Our communication tool kept up with times, moving from ICQ messenger to MSN messenger to Line messenger. Using these platforms, we shared in each others’ woes and joys, cared for and supported each other and through the ups and downs in life, we grew together.

Today, we are no longer in our twenties, yet when we see each other, when you put all of us in the same room again, we get up to the same antics again. Our conversational topics have changed as our interests and life stage changes, but we know in our hearts, some things, like our friendship, remain the same. I continue to have implicit trust in them and appreciate their presence in my life.

I have always liked the name of the Yahoo group that we were once part of “To be continued”. That’s right. The show has ended, the stars have dimmed, the group has disbanded but our friendship is far from being over… And the story of these 6 girls remain to be continued.

一個女人能有多少個十年？我們相知相伴走過了十個年頭，共同經歷了屬於我們的少女時代，用回憶留住了青春，從生離死別中彼此扶持，學習如何女人當自強。

一部《薔薇之戀》把六個毫無交集的女生牽在了一起，讓兩個新加坡人在台灣找到了第二個家，也誤打誤撞成就了一份因緣（我們都知道是在說你們）。回顧過去這十年，儘是酸甜苦辣，但最後留下的是依然是最初的那句「未完待續」。

今天的我們不再瘋狂追戲追星追CP，也不再掛網聊天至凌晨，隔天帶著熊貓眼到公司報到，更不再任性地隨意採購周邊商品… 雖然我們當中還是有人會偶爾犯病——出國追星、狂買周邊。

非常懷念過往的日子，但往事隨風不是說假的，非常珍惜此刻的友誼，雖不如以往那般親近卻始終都在，細水長流不外乎如此。謝謝你們多年的陪伴、鼓勵和支持，讓我有莫名的信心，相信我們之間的友情。

未完待續～