You go girlfriends!

My girlie group was formed 12 years ago when all of us were in the second year of high school. The six of us took the same additional courses in Physics and Math. We were Tari, Pepeng, Ijem, Inem, Ling ling and myself. For the fact that I have been friends with Tari since I was in kindergarten and that we lived next door to each other (we still do!), the other girls decided that the courses should be done in my house. So every Friday for the whole year, we all hung out at Tari’s and my place.

Our main activities were cutting classes, taking pictures of ourselves (Pepeng was the Photographer), boy-hunting and being such curious teenagers! We tried so many of the so-called "prohibited" things just for the sake of trying. Since Inem was the only one who could drive and had a car back then, we were always in her car whenever we were doing these activities. Later on, more of us were able to drive and we started using different cars.

Yes we call it boy-hunting. During that year, this activity was really popular (I don’t really know if it’s still popular now since we sort of stopped doing this once we were all in college – being in a higher education, we didn’t want to sell ourselves too short!) We would drive around areas where boys were hanging out, trying to get their attention and made them follow us with their car. And then, if they weren’t ugly, we would consider introducing ourselves.

One time, we were using Ling-ling’s car and we spotted a bunch of really cute boys in a Pajero (at that time, this was such a cool car!). So we tried attracting their attention and made them follow us to a place where we could start introducing ourselves. Ijem was driving at the time. When the boys went out of their car to go to our car, suddenly one of them stopped and yelled "Shit! That’s a man’s underwear on the dashboard!!!" and all of them ran back into their car and drove away…!! We were shocked to hell because we didn’t realize that there was a "Hings" underwear at the top-back of the steering wheel which was used by Ling-ling’s driver to wipe the car’s front window! We were dying of laughter when Ling-ling confessed that her driver had forgotten to put it back to where it belonged. "Gee, don’t you guys ever use used underwear to wipe glasses??? It cleans better…" That was the comment coming out of Ling-ling’s mouth which made us burst into laughter. Ijem was red like a lobster out of embarrassment since she was the first one spotted by the guys where the "Hings" was sitting right in front of her.

As best friends, we weren’t always together. On our third year of high school, Tari, Ling-ling and myself went for a student exchange trip abroad. The 6 of us were separated for a year. Those were the days when e-mails and internet had not yet existed! So we wrote to each other by post mails!!! And to my amazement, we were all diligently sending mails to each other because we really missed each other. I even remember my dearest Pepeng sent me a birthday card which she made by herself and took the time to collect the signatures and birthday wishes from all my good friends in high school. I was so touched that I still keep that birthday card until now. We also made recorded tapes of our voices. The three girls who were left in Jakarta had arranged for Tari, Ling-ling and myself so that each of us got one tape. To ensure that we could listen to our voices whenever we missed "us" so much.

Those were our carefree days. We had such a blast. We went everywhere together, from the school trip to Bali, the little trip to Bandung, the trips to celebrate Ling-ling’s birthdays, the new year’s eves at Pepeng’s 5-star hotel rooms, the "sex & the city" marathon night before Tari got married, the TV-quiz audition with Ijem the "quiz-queen" and many-many more. Everytime we were together there was always something fun happening, from inviting Ling-ling’s crush to her birthday to having the Project-P comedians sang happy birthday for her. Our bond made us forget any kind of sadness. It seems that just by seeing these dear faces, our sorrows are cured. This sad-free mode was even visible during the times when Ijem’s mom got really ill and later on passed away. I remember that at the night after her mom’s 40 days memorial service, Ijem was proposing for us to hang out at Club 45. She was saying "I need to get out and forget my sadness" and we all went with her to cheer her up.

These girls are my backbone best friends. We went through the falling in love, the break ups, the heartache, the lost of parents, the weddings, the babies that were born – everything… together. There was one time when we discussed our friendship to see what has kept us together. We found out that: Firstly, we have never "backstabbed" any of the girls (we have never said bad things behind each other’s back - we have always said it right to her face). Secondly, we didn’t have the same taste in boys and have never tried to steal any of the girls’ boyfriends. Even better, whenever we had a new boyfriend, we have always brought him to the girls and "force" him to get along with the six of us! The girls’ opinion means a lot to each of us. These girls have an extended network that could find out whether our boyfriend is a good guy or not. For the boyfriends, the challenge was not only to win the parents’ blessing but also to win the girls’ support. Now our group is getting larger, with additional 3 husbands and 3 babies.

"12 years" is not a short time for some friendship. And this is the kind of friendship that keeps six girls together even when we were apart – and – even after three of us got into the time-demanding-marriage-life. Thanks to the technology, I can still talk to my girls every now and then. We’re planning for a big reunion, this time Ling-ling who has been away for 8 years, has to come. Yes, 12 years is indeed not a short time for a friendship… and perhaps, we are aiming for a lifetime.
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(Dedicated to my girls – we’ve been through so many things together that I could practically write a book about us! A drop of e-mail from you guys every now and then really brightens my day).