The time-space continuum

Did you ever mourn the "loss" of a friend? Not an actual lost from passing, thank goodness, but the fact that you've lost touch with someone, or they turned out to be a different person than you thought? It's a difficult thing to come to terms with, especially when you thought you were on the same page. It's not that I want someone to be a certain way or I won't be friends with them, but it's disappointing when it turns out you just don't have anything in common with them anymore.

When I met this particular friend a couple of years ago, we clicked immediately. We quickly became close friends, we talked about everything under the sun, we hung out together with our kids all the time. It was just a fantastic friendship. But then life took us in entirely different directions. More and more I started to realize, that while I had found my "niche" and was loving life, they were one of those people that needed constant change and shake-ups to be "happy". There always had to be something new; a new house, car, job, baby, a move, etc, etc. She went through some tough times, and I wanted to be there for her, but it seemed so difficult. She was so consumed by what was going on, that I never knew what was happening. It seemed like she jumped from one thing to another and I just couldn't keep up. Not that it was her responsibility, part of it was mine, but every time I DID talk to her, she was bouncing around to something else. It was exhausting.

Isn't it strange how quickly people come in and out of our lives? Our lives all follow different paths, and then, for sometimes the briefest of moments, we cross paths with someone else. Sometimes they disappear as quickly as they came, sometimes they stay for awhile, and sometimes, if we're really lucky, their presence remains with us for our entire lives. You can never predict which category a new friend will fall into. Sometimes it seems as though you'll be friends for the long haul, but then things don't work out like you imagined they would. Then, other times, you cross paths with the most random of people and you find yourself closer to them than anyone else. Life is so mysterious and full of surprises sometimes.

At each stage in my life, I find myself mourning the loss of a few friends. Sometimes I have sped up in life, and sometimes I have taken a slower route. Sometimes, their new lifestyle is just one that is too different from my own to find any common ground at that particular point in time. I'm coming to realize, that life is not a series of intersecting lines, but overlapping circles instead. We move through life making small circles in time, somehow always ending up back where we started. Despite all of the wonderful things we experience in life, somehow it can never change who we truly are inside, who we are meant to be. Until we can embrace ourselves, we seem to search for fulfillment in other people and places. We wait for something we do or someone we know to speak to us, but in the end, we have to listen to ourselves. Sometimes it's hard to hear, because it's telling us something that we always thought we didn't want. Once we are finally ok with where we are, then everything else just falls into place.

I miss a lot of the friends that I've had throughout my life. Hopefully someday, our paths may cross again, but just in case they won't, I wish all the best to all those "lost" friends that have come and gone.