Birthday Surprise the Circle Way

My circle of friends and I have started this kind of surprise for a birthday celebrant in our group that usually ends with us smearing cake on each others’ faces and popping balloons directly on each others’ ears. When October hit the calendars, nine of us decided to plan and prepare for the October celebrants. They know, alright, that they would receive a surprise, but they didn’t know when or what it would be.

On Friday before the exams, we did it.

We sneaked into Gen’s house with the help of her classmate and very cool mom for two consecutive nights, the second night being the day of the surprise. At first, I thought it was SO impossible and crazy to set up an inflatable pool for a birthday surprise but something told my mind we had to create a surprise that’d be memorable—different from cakes and balloons and collages and face powders.

I don’t even know where to start. It was hard to remove all the balloons from her room’s ceiling when we knew she was coming home unexpectedly; and to hide and keep quiet and refrain from laughing for old time’s sake; and to believe that she wouldn’t hear us and know about what we were doing, but everything was worth all those hardships.

I think what made it successful is our trust in each other. That’s what really makes friendships cool, you know. It’s not about how long you’ve known each other or something like that. I mean (I always say these two words a lot), what’s the sense of waiting for a long time and being awkward together before considering these people your “friends”? Why later, when you can do it now? It’s about the things you do together and how comfortable you are with them. It’s about saying, “Who cares about the future, at least we’re together now”. Surely, there are people you don’t like at all, but that depends on you. That’s why we can choose friends. We can never, ever please everyone, so if you’re trying to do that, I will do my best to get you into talking and try to stop you.

Just be who you are- they will come to you.