friendships are such an important factor in my life. i grew up as an only child in a relatively decent family for about 12 years before my fist sibling came along. just your general middle class immigrant family in the suburbs of maryland. i was born in the philippines, from my understanding, into a fairly affluent family. i grew up with my grandparents taking care of me while my parents worked abroad. i even had a personal nanny take me from the philippines to the united states. from that end, i was never really close to my parents because they probably didn't know how to deal with me let alone come to a foreign country where we didn't have maids and cooks attending to us. back in the 70's i was your typical run of the mill latch-key child. i remember as young as 6 i would have a key around my neck to get me into the apartment and wait until my mom got home from work to cook dinner. for about 3-4 hours in a day, i'd be at home putzing around and watching tv or something. this probably resulted in me always feeling alone and was very much an introvert most of my life. as i grew older, i slowly came out of my shell. i have come to terms with me being gay. i have grown to understand why and how my parent's and the rest of my family have become BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS. i have progressed a lot in my personal well being and growth -- just as anyone else should as they grow older and experience life. fast forward to 2004 -- i move back to washington, dc after a few years hopping all over the country basically trying to get through with life. i have come across a group of friends in dc who i have grown into a very close relationship with. more so than possibly any instance in my lifetime. with this set of friends comes along an exponential amount of ancillary other people i have gotten to meet, yet keeping the core group strong and (somewhat) healthy. as i have rambled on in my other postings here over the past few years, my acquaintance level has skyrocketed in the past 6-7 months compared to who i knew previously. acquaintances, yes, i have many -- friends -- or better yet -- FAMILY -- i just have my key core group. over the past few months and more specifically in the past 24 hours, things have more than fallen apart. no need to go into specific details. suffice to say, i'm still trying to be my typical self -- even keeled, relatively unaffected, holding it all in until that one day or moment where it will just explode. whenever THAT happens -- god help the soul who's on the other end of that conversation. trust me -- it gets messy. that's just one of my non-confrontational passive aggressive things that i do. i really need to work on that.