Memory Pages

I waved good-bye to my best friends with tears over flowing my eyes. I sobbed in my car that drove away from what once was my home towards the Bangkok airport. My friends became smaller and smaller, until they were out of sight. Then I buried my face into my dad’s arms as I hugged the scrapbook they made me as a going away present.  Inside that scrapbook contains letters the size of essays from all my friends, even from different grades; and countless pictures of sleepovers, hangouts, and parties. Pictures, that captured the times that we have shared. The scrapbook is nothing fancy - just a spiral notebook costing 50.20baht to be exact (5.02rm), with a yellow cover that says ‘The International School of Bangkok’ (ISB). However, through my eyes it is priceless- something I would never trade for material things, like diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. For almost nothing is more important to me than my friends, my second family. The friends that have always been there to lend a helping hand- pulling me back up when I’m hanging by a thread above an ocean of problems. They were always there, standing next to me sharing the moments when I conquered my fears, and felt as if I had won the world. Though there were those times where we experienced hardships, in the end it just became something else to joke about.

My friends were there in the good times and bad, and whenever I look through the pages of my scrapbook, it brings me back to those days. Especially the first day I stepped foot on the grounds of ISB when I was nine. Lacking confidence, shy, quiet, not having the guts to make new friends, and now. Now thanks to them I’m in this new place where I’m confident, sometimes too loud, and always willing to meet someone new. All thanks to the friends I’ve made during my two and a half year stay in Bangkok. The friends that transformed me from a shy little girl- to a girl that is lively and laughs nonstop. The friends that dedicated countless hours to take pictures, print them, collect letters and decorate every page with their pointless doodles. Not only that, they always kept me busy in my last days of Bangkok. From paint balling, movie nights, endless sleepovers, dinners, mall outing, and even a surprise party! All of those precious memories are held inside my scrapbook. The scrapbook that never fails to put a smile on my face- the sanctuary I went to, during the “new kid stage” I experienced at my first months studying at my new school. Though it has been more than a year since I moved away, through my eyes my scrapbook is, and always will be more precious than any jewel. It will always be my escape- waiting for me when I want to forget about my hectic future, and spend a moment remembering my without a care past.