Well, seven months is not that long if you think about it. Sometimes, I imagine she’s still here with us. When I shop, I can still hear her voice nagging me to choose a mature-looking and expensive blouse instead of a cheap and cute baby t-shirt. While walking in our village, and as I turn to the FX terminal, I can still see her in her company uniform waving furiously at me, teasing “Late ka na naman no?” It’s not easy losing a best friend.
(Reader, let's call her Julia instead of her real name, just to prevent her from haunting me, it IS her personal space after all, hehe!).
Julia died last January 2010. It came as big surprise for all of us. She was more alive than everyone else with her adventurous and outgoing ways. She was turning her life around when God took her away. He has His reasons, I guess. Perhaps, He needed her more than we did.
I haven’t been in her room for a long time now. Perhaps, not in two years. Her mother hasn’t touched a hair in her room. She told me seeing her bedroom as it is makes her comforted, at least for now.
When I stepped inside her room, it felt different though. Some things have changed. Besides the fact that she was gone, I knew that when she passed away, she was not the person I knew the last time I hung out in her room.
The first thing you notice in her room is her collection of bags. I immediately noticed the bag stand, which was not there two years ago. Her sister explained Julia started having a hard time opening her drawers overflowing with bags so she bought a bag stand. Most of her bags are shoulder bags. There’s not one back pack. She hates body bags. The designs are mostly mature, “mommy bags” as I called them then. I guess you can say that for her age, she really likes looking mature. She hated looking “nene”. And she likes dressing up, so her bags are accessories that fit her mood, her dress, her day.
Not only is she obsessed with bags, she shares her obsession to other people by selling them. Julia is quite a businesswoman, you see. Inside her closet (which is quite new, since her old closet was destroyed during the Ondoy typhoon), there’s a partition with her unsold bags. I felt sad finding these bags. It’s like she had lots of unfinished things she left behind when she left. I told her sister to sell the bags.
Another interesting find is her basket of magazines. I knew back then that she had two or three magazines. But I never knew she acquired so much! These magazines were very helpful to her fashionable get-ups, mixing and matching clothes and accessories. She’s very kikay that way. Compared to her, I was always the tomboy.
What I also found interesting were her plastic containers full of clothes and what-not. These are the stuff that no longer fit inside her brand new, but small closet, so after Ondoy, she just bought a lot of these plastic containers to have them fit. Needless to say, she has lots of stuff!
At first I thought it was because she’s a habitual shopper. She buys stuff every time she goes out, whether it’s earrings, shoes, bags or clothes. But apparently, I realized there's a deeper reason.
Julia has a very organized album of pictures. She even had our studio pictures, neo print and even the foto me pictures saved up (I wasn’t able to get a picture though, I was too teary-eyed by that time. Her sister promised to scan the pictures for me) But what got me crying was our picture which she placed not only in her closet, but also in their living room. I really was her number one friend. I realized Julia is a very sentimental person, and that’s why she bought a thing every time to mark the occasion. Something to remember with, a souvenir, a memory.
The numerous containers with corresponding stuff like clothes, books, old bags, etc. reveals Julia is very organized and neat. She likes order in her life so she can think clearly. Compartmentalizing her living space makes her compartmentalize her life as well. She loves her work, her family, her boyfriend and her friends. She liked having different set of friends, hanging out with them at separate dates. I guess this is the same way as her shopping for a lot of things. That’s how she makes her life colorful and more interesting. Before Julia died, she just got promoted in her office. She was also planning to take special courses in fashion design to become a fashion designer.
I also discovered upon snooping that she was starting a collection of coloring books, crayons and colored pencils. I didn’t know this until now. She never told me she spent her nights coloring flowers, castles, butterflies and a lot more in coloring books. Julia was always the creative type. She sketches well, especially clothes. Once, she sketched my wedding gown. But that got destroyed in Ondoy, too bad. But here are some sketches of hers that I found.
All in all, I found Julia’s room, though quite small, to be so much interesting and colorful. She might be organized and all that, but she was very spontaneous and unpredictable. She has lots of cute stuff I never imagined her to have: like furry slippers and M&Ms vendo machines. Just like her coloring books and crayons. Where did that fit in her mature, fashionable aura? But perhaps, this is something we shared. I might be losyang and a magazine-hater, but I’d like to color a coloring book any day.
Another conclusion I came up with is that Julia is a repressed artist. Her mom didn't allow her to pursue an arts course because it wasn't stable. Instead her mom urged her to grow up and take a finance/marketing course instead. I guess this explains why most of her stuff are grown up, but there's that part of her that likes colors and bright things. Julia never stopped drawing because deep down, she is an artist. And she didn't allow that to be repressed.
For her next birthday, which she is celebrating in heaven, I'll give her a sewing machine and some fabrics so she can create her masterpieces. But frankly, if it's only possible, I'll give her life as a gift.
While in her room, I thought to myself, here’s a person who really, truly lived. Who had so much to live for. And though I miss her so much, I'm sure that wherever she is, it’s a place more spectacular and unimaginable like a giant coloring book, plus a mega endless shopping mecca
