loring

you think you can pigeon-hole her. i think not.

"every place is a market place" is her professed motto in life. she prances around acting gruff and jologs, always flashing her thousand-dollar smile. she relates to everyone with the kind of familiarity of an annoying little sister who demands ice cream. she gets her way most of the time, though not without murmured resignations that she is just being herself.

i think it's the kind of familiarity she wants people to have of her. we all do that when we don't want people to pry beyond our immediate exterior. it gives people a false sense of knowing because they can put you in box and claim ready adjectives to describe you. when she's loud, and drink from everybody's water bottle or makes inane comments, it's expected and people say it's just being her.

it's really clever.

one day I looked her way and caught the loss of the usual sparkle in her eyes. i asked bluntly if she had a problem. very casually, she dismissed me by a curt "no", followed by "wala lang" when i pointed to her sad expression. then she was in her "market place" element again blurting thoughtless comments and what-nots. because i can match her inanities and go toe-to-toe with the market place attitude, my prying was considered more a quirk than a trait. otherwise, i would have been dismissed as a person.

i have become a more accepting human being because of the association with her. i don't tell her that, of course. that girl's a swell-headed brat. but sometimes, meaningful friendships can be found in inanities and mindless association until some meaning and deeper connection are found. i learned in p.e. class the principle of constant overloading. maybe it's working here. one day, she blurted about some personal things and in my head i went, ugh, overshare. but when i reviewed the information with her sometime after that, i found myself in the marketplace again, meandering and soaking in the yada-yada-oh-ok-bye conversation. then the cycle began again. a little more info stored. a little more familiarity stored. just a little overload. we're good. just the way i like it.