15: Friends

For company on long, aimless drives when I needed to get out of the home-work-home-work-home rut.

For writing and phoning often and letting me know I'm still a part of your life even though I've moved an ocean away.

For emails that go deeper than "Hey" and Facebook contact beyond sheep-throwing. (Does anyone even do that, still?)

For not being pai seh.

For knowing the worst of me and yet not judging me.

For driving me around the hometown where I no longer have a car.

For lending me your mother when I needed one and my own was too far away.

For hearing me say I'd found the books I'd been dreaming of since childhood, and then giving me the box set before I had the chance to buy it for myself.

For getting me to take the risks that have led to a richer life.

For telling me off when I say or do something bad.

For staying on the phone all night if I needed you to, back in the confused days of our early 20s, and then picking me up en route to uni because I was too tired to drive safely.

For helping to keep my Hokkien skills in shape.

For not being shy to burst into song in public, in three-part harmony.

For getting your family to let me stay in your home for over a month.

For keeping silly childhood languages alive.

For talking me down from my overcompensating Chinese ways.

For knowing when I need to bake, and willingly eating the result even if it's on the far side of edible.

For making me feel I'm not so alone, after all.

For being a one-person online cheer team.

For praying for someone you've never met in person.

For sending me your songs.

For proving that real friends don't have ages.

For showing me good food in far-flung places.

For knowing how to be silent without being awkward.

For baking a birthday cake for a friend you'd just made two weeks previous.

For being someone I am comfortable to laugh and cry with.

For keeping the best of me when I think she's lost for good.

For being someone I can trust.

For the many more that can't be listed because this girl's got to get on with Monday, but we know what they are.

Thank you.