A Prize...

I saw this on my friend's LJ:

"It's not easy being a loser. Even if there's a consolation prizse, there's still the jackpot to be envied. I don't want to live on left-overs & simply content myself in them, since I believe that I deserve the best, the whole banquet, just like everybody else."

And I agree totally with that statement. Totally, one hundred percent and change. Which is why I choose friends who I can argue with and still hug and kiss afterwards.

Although it may look like I have settled for the consolation prize. I treat myself as a winner. I have a wife who understands me, and who I understand also. I have a son and daughter. And they're beginning to go weird. They're in the early teens so that makes sense. I see my daughter at two o'clock in the morning still reading a novel, and I am happy because she is reading. But I still tell her to go to sleep. I get home and I see my son outside the gates of our house with his friends. He's okay. I know where he is and where his "barkada" is.

There was a friend of mine who was in love with a girl. The girl, however, treated him like a spare tire. The reason being that she had a boyfriend she could not leave. The boyfriend was rich, and therefore considered a "catch." He was a prize. Looking at it, not that I was biased towards my friend, but the boyfriend did not have a job, he was just rich and, besides, didn't want to settle down. My friend had a good job. He had a career and he wanted to settle down. So my friend was treated as a consolation prize at most, and not really worth it, at least. Now he's getting married soon, with a beautiful girl, who also happens to be a friend who I've known for a longer time.

I can strive for the ideal. But I am happy with what I have. And with what I am. And to some, I would like to believe, I am a prize. I am a prized and treasured friend. Because I prize and treasure my friends.

--andoy
6 April 2005