Monday, March 10, 2008 . 4:19 PM

Almost every Saturday since CNY, I have been playing mahjong. Does that make me an addict? Mom certainly seems to think so.

I've won some... and lost more. But the bottomline is that I'm happy when I play. Oh alright, I admit that I feel like crap if I'm losing (which is more often than not), but that's quickly forgotten when the itch sets in.

When you got to mahjong, you mahjong. Except with Mel.

Out of consideration for our already tumultuous friendship, I should not further shake things up with mahjong.

Now Mel... I haven't intended to blog about our friendship, but since I've already mentioned her. I admit that I have a love-hate thing going on here. She's a fun person and I enjoy talking to her. Everytime we meet, I get reminded of just how much fun we used to have.

From Aaron's famous luncheons, where everyone from sch apparently wants to get invited to, to weekly boring anime screenings, which is actually an excuse for us to gorge on Aaron's pasta. We got fat together and those were the fun-boring days.

I used to envy her for having friends to go out clubbing with every weekend. I envied her luck with men, with jobs, with people. But I could never find any shred of resentment for her in my heart because she was always there for me.

Sometime last year, everything changed.

She broke up with Jem. Hung out 24/7 with her colleagues. Partied hard. Neglected friends.

It was obvious who was the priority and it clearly wasn't me. I felt hurt, but felt like a kid if I kicked up a fuss, though privately, I did.

I felt like I lost a precious friend.

Perhaps things were okay still, in a way. Because she was on MSN and we would talk online even if we couldn't meet. Then, she invited me to parties and, that little period of my life was the wildest I've ever been.

But what is wild to me couldn't be any tamer to someone like say, Dawn Yang. Or Gillian Chung. Or even Elsie. Probably not the last, but you get the drift. I caught a little glimpse of her life and can't say I enjoyed it all that much.

Then, she had her downs and I tried to be there for her, offering all that she has offered before: support, friendship, girltime.

That period of time is gone and she's busier than ever. We barely communicate at all and the last time I saw her was... last month, during CNY. All other plans to meet after that fell through.

Have I lost a friend? It definitely feels that way to me. But constantly working at maintaining any relationship without help from the other party is tiring. Actually, it has gotten to a point whereby it is awkward to see each other. I don't know what to say sometimes.

The comfort zone that belonged to us... no longer feels quite so comfortable.