“Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
There is a theory that you find your best friends in life in high school. I know I found my 3 best friends within those 4 years, which made my high school years The.Best.Years of my life.
Hello. My name is Mutya Bose, but I was called Mutch back then. I was in 1C, 2C, 3L, and 4H. I was probably known best for being the weird kid, the writer/musician who spent 4 years on the Blue Flame, becoming literary editor in my senior year, as well as one of the editors of the yearbook.
I didn’t really think I was anything above average. I came from JASMS Malate, a co-ed school on the other side of Quirino. JASMS doesn’t have a high school, so a lot of its graduates move out to exclusive girls or boys schools. When I moved to St Scho, I didn’t understand how groups of girls can actually be so competitive and aggro (aggressive). Why were there so many girls?!? Why were they fawning over these male teachers??!? Why did they put so much stock in how one looked? Why did everybody HAVE TO have St. Michael’s socks??!?
Truth be told, I didn’t know how to act. I was not just the new kid, I was also coming to grips with puberty and all the gross things that come with it. I came from a small school where everyone knew everybody. I immediately became a small fish in a big pond, a nobody. I didn’t talk like everyone else. I didn’t hang out with the popular kids. In my co-ed school, the ones who got a lot of attention were the pretty girls. Since everyone knew everyone, no one was more popular than the other.
But keeping a low profile in St.Scho wasn’t enough. It wasn’t too long before I had gotten bullied in St Scho. The rebel in me would tune out the bully, but the joke wouldn’t be missed by everyone else. Staying aloof was a coping mechanism. I tried to fight back as well, and on one of those vulnerable days, I casually asked this cool girl at the back row if she would ever back me up in a fight. Hah. She said yes. I found my first BFF for life: Des Lawas.
I experienced a ton of angst in my early teen years because I was different. Part of me welcomed it and wrote poems and songs about it. I relished my loneliness and made my weirdness a quirk. I listened to Nirvana, Cranberries, Edie Brickell when everyone else listened to Snow, OMD, Side A. I learned to play guitar thru songhits and chord charts. I made little zines I would never publish. I loved being creative as it gave me a sense of purpose within my angst-ridden teen life. Sometime during my sophomore year, I met Ming Posa, my other BFF for life. We bonded over Neil Gaiman comics and Indigo Girls and guitars. Our sisters were best friends too, so I was sort of thrown into a friendship with Ming (Literally! My sister would drag me to their house and I would be thrown in Ming’s room) She was polite enough not to throw me out, though. Eventually, I thought she was cool, level-headed, ridiculously smart … definitely a keeper friend. My second BFF.
In my senior year, I sat next to a girl who supposedly hated my guts for being too weird. At some point, we started passing notes, copying answers. She would draw unicorn-pegasus hybrids on my arm in the Troika. She was one of the popular kids at school, and she was clued in to the perfect way to act in typical Kulasa culture. But she has a ridiculously creative, artsy side to her too, one that endears her to me. She has an incredible depth to her that made her so passionate about everything. Lap Wedlock Custodio soon became my friend and one of my final high school BFFs.
We also formed the core of the band MUTILATED FINGERS, easily one of my high school life highlights. We played at the high school dance, family day, other feasts, and special events in and around the school. We, later on, gained a bit of notoriety in college, at UP (Manila) and placed in some Battle of the Bands during the summers of 96 and 97, got radio airplay, and was published in a BMG compilation. That’s a whole other story, though.
I finally felt like I belonged with these three.
I met other friends in high school, bonding with them over soirees, Leo Dicaprio, Kurt Cobain, music, Pearl Jam, Wolfgang, Club Dredd, art, electives, clubs, class projects, class section shenanigans. I even made friends with one of my bullies and found her to be sweet and incredibly funny once I got to know her.
I think that despite my weirdness, my angst, and my cluelessness, I had found my people in high school. That’s always important, isn’t it? Finding your village, your support system, your family among friends. We crave to make connections, regardless of how antisocial or weird we ever decide to become.
In high school, we were raw and open and young and naive. We pushed to experience new things, rebelled against authority, and felt things with so much more emotion. Puberty, PMS, First Crushes/Loves – they could all be happening in high school. St Scho was a witness to most, if not all, of our firsts.
Finding your squad then is a major bonus, as they will shape you, influence you, make you so much better and smarter and in tune with yourself. They’ll keep you grounded when your head is in the clouds, and cheer you on when you endeavor to start something new.
In St. Scho, I’m grateful to learn and experience a lot of things, but my favorite takeaway is my friends, particularly my 3 best friends: Des, Ming, and Lap. They still are to this very day.
I may still not be cool, passionate, or as smart as they are, but I’m still hoping it will rub off someday. (Mutilated) Fingers Crossed.
