Found: Long Lost Friend

Never underestimate the power of the Internet.

Remember my post about my long lost best friend, Mila? It was posted 04/14/09 -although I did write in 2007 about reminiscing her and Jakarta, thanks to Gwen Stefani’s 4 in the Morning- then about three months later, she dropped a comment in my  ’Saya’ page of this blog! I was with my family one cold Saturday, enjoying brunch in a small local cafe after the kids were done competing at the Iowa Games track and field event. My iPhone dinged to informed that I just got an email. We were still waiting for our food to come, so I checked my Gmail and read that WordPress, my blog host, was asking my approval in relates to someone’s comment to my post. My jaw dropped… it was my long lost best friendher! I was so freaked out! Of course I approved it and replied right away:

emka on July 18, 2009 Edit This

Hi sist, gw lg di puncak, biasa, msh dg kesibukan shtng..
Ada temen ksh tau suruh buka ur blog.. Baca crita kita..
Didinginnya tengah mlm puncak, can u imagine how I feel ?
Tears falling down instantly.. Gosshhh.. Miss u so much !
Miss our friendship, miss everything about us..
Thanks for trying to find me..

Reply

dinysays on July 21, 2009 Edit This

Milaaaaaaa… OMG! Akhirnya nyampe juga suara hatiku -ceile- menyebrangi lautan. Selanjutnya gue email elo aja yah. Miss you, sis!

Reply

After all this time… for about 8 years I did [almost] everything a stalker would do to find her. She must have changed her cell phone number and email. I wasn’t able to reach her there. So I Googled, Youtubed, even Facebooked her name; the result was not satisfying. All results mostly lead me to old news and foto archives from various Indonesian online media.

Then after watching the movie “I Love You, Man” with Paul Rudd which made me think about our friendship,  I decided to write it on my blog. I thought, “What the heck… give it a try.” Months went by without positive news, although some commentators were nice enough to encouraged me not to give up hope and said they’ll try to ask around. Evidently, somewhere in Indonesia, a guy (Mila’s friend whom I also knew) was either bored or doing some PR-ing, did a search on the Net on her name. He, according to Mila, then informed her about my pathetic post; then the rest is history.

***Thanks, Anto… I still feel bad about puking on your lap in the car after a night of clubbing. Very sorry, man.

After a series of hit and miss, we finally were able to chat (I really thank the Internet for bringing Indonesia closer to me virtually). She was having trouble installing the chat programme into her Blackberry for a while.

These messages were sent while you were offline.

5:35 AM mkarmelia: Sorry BB lg ngehang mulu sist.. Baru di upgrade niy..

Sorry lg trouble logging ke google talk niy
Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry®

So I waited patiently to see that little green bullet ‘available’ icon appear next to her name whenever I open my Gmail. Patience is a virtue, they said. How true. I was at work last Wednesday morning, and was checking my Gmail. all of the sudden, a pop up window showed up on the lower right screen of my computer.

8:58 AM mkarmelia: Hi sis, pa kbr ?
 me: WAAAA!!! ADA MILAAA!!
8:59 AM mkarmelia: Heheheeeee… Maaaaaap !!!
9:00 AM me: ga papa lageee… lagi di mana sis?
 mkarmelia: Drmh lg skt, beteeee.. Dirimu ?
9:01 AM me: kantor. sakit ape? kangen gue sampe sakit begitu, kaciaan :p
9:02 AM mkarmelia: Kejar setoran biasaaaa.. Mplu..
  Kntr apa sis ?

… and so on and so forth

Thank you Leonard Kleinrock for pioneering this, I had found my long lost friend now. 

I’m so glad I found you again, sis. Hope you wouldn’t mind me posting your cute pic with the twins