January is synonymous to beginnings. Aside from the fact that it is the first month of the year, to many it is also a new start. And for some like me, January is also a great time to look back from where and how I started and reflect on what I have become.
Christmas 2018 (and New Year) carried forward some good things to me as 2019 started. One of such was being virtually reunited with my highschool classmates and friends (through Facebook). Our high school batch’s 25th Year/Silver anniversary paved way to meeting my classmates again whom I lost contacts with since graduating high school. Though, I kept in touch with few, it is only this year that I actually reconnected to almost all of them. It feels good to keep updates about each others’ lives and recollect high school’s most memorable antics.
I tend to believe that I had the best childhood. And last night, out of the blue I received an invitation from someone who created a Facebook group chat with the group name (CMC One Big Fight) I am very familiar with growing up. One of my childhood friends made it. Since he has limited contact to all of us, the initial group of four immediately became the complete fourteen people as everyone added others whom they have contact to. I can’t believe that fourteen friends who grew up together in a small residential compound and separated because of life’s constant changes are now virtually connected again. This reconnection’s timing was perfect! Winter blues kick in occasionally and with the group’s active conversations and sharing of photos from when we were growing up (kudos to Zaldy who was able to preserve these photos) certainly ease the homesickness.
Two weeks ago I decided to make a weekend trip to New York City mainly to capture Brooklyn’s Landscape. As I was on the train, it passed through Bridgeport, CT and I started feeling nostalgic about what and where was I more than a decade ago. Bridgeport will always be special to me. This is where my career as a nurse all started- where I learned so much about caring and compassion and realistic approach to life’s situation. This is also where I met some great people and my truest friends whom I proudly can say for keeps. The nostalgia brought me to contact and create a group chat with my old colleagues whom I lived (and worked) with in one building we called Annex. The chat lasted only briefly as almost all of us are living in different time zones. For that brief period of time though, it made me feel as if we were in the common living room of the Annex building again.
And I was finally back in New York City for this time being. Not that I have not visited NYC since I left, but this time I felt this is something special than my previous revisits. A year ago I started taking photography seriously, and having New York City as one of the places I first live at when I moved in the US, I thought I ought to capture its own beauty. My goal is to capture the sunrise in Brooklyn Bridge. As I rode the subway going there, I also passed through familiar places I once enjoyed while living in this unique city. From Grand Central Station to Wall Street and to finally to Brooklyn Bridge- which I walked perhaps hundreds of times. I got at the bridge just in time when the sun was just beginning to light up the city that never sleeps. I spent a good hour to witness the magnificent reflections of the sun rays to New York’s towering skyscrapers, uttered some gratitude to this life I currently have which not many people experience. I am indeed thankful to this short trip as I retraced my footsteps.
Sunrise at Brooklyn Bridge, NY 01.11.2019