It's taken me a while, but I've reached some conclusions.

It's a natural part of life really, for any human that is. People slowly drift apart. In my case, and maybe some others, it can also happen quite abruptly. The bottom line though is that people drift apart. It's just what happens. Time passes slowly, we live quite a long time and the fact of the matter is we can't always be with the people we want to be. It happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it happens for no reason. Life keeps creeping along though, myself floating away in one direction and you in another. We all have our paths, some straight and narrow, some erratic and jittery, some hesitant; there are as many paths as there are ways someone can live their life. It's because of that path that we can both run into each other and run away from each other. The only constant is that life continues.

Life continues and sometimes you don't have any say in your direction, you can't stop yourself from drifting away from those you want to be with. That's half the problem. The other half is that you lack control over the lives of others, you can't catch them and make them stay. Sure you can reach out and try to grab a hold of them, but it doesn't always work.

There are a few forms of distance we experience on an everyday basis:

Physical distance. You have to move, other people have to move. Jobs, schooling, family, there are many reasons.

Emotional distance. We can be physically close yet remain distant from each other. Arguments, lack of communication, there are many reasons.

Temporal distance. This is the oddest type of distance. Sometimes we just don't live in the same time as each other. Some people have to work for a living, some people are still in school, some people have started families, some people have become very mature. People will always have different life experiences and sometimes it separates them from you. It's not that you're far away, or that you don't feel the same way you used to about someone, it's just that you can't understand them. They're at a different point in their life than you are. They understand and look at the world differently than you. This is perhaps the one type of distance we have the least amount of control over and it's possibly the greatest distance you can experience from someone.

We experience some sort of distance from every single person we've met in our lives in one form or another, even if it's only temporary. Yet again, life still continues as these distances grow.

And you know what? Maybe that's the problem.

You can never go back, you can never say the things you meant to say, you can never do the things you meant to do. Instead, you can keep living your life wondering what would or could have happened. You can keep looking for those people from your past and you may indeed find them again (in one way or another), yet you can never find the person you lost. The simple fact is, they're another person now. They've changed, you've changed, it's not the same. Those things you wanted to say? The things you wanted to do? They won't have the same impact. Time degrades the meaning of things.

So instead you keep living, looking for that person from your past, hoping to find them. Not the physical person, but the person they were. The problem is you're never going to find them. Never.


My point is: there are so many things I wish I had done for the people in my life, so many things I wish I said to the people in my life. I still know some of these people and I've considered going back to them and doing or saying these things, but it's pointless. It won't be the same. I'm going to keep making these mistakes and keep looking for people I'm sure to lose in the future... but at least I understand what's happening and why it's happening.

Maybe one day I'll learn to do and say the things I want to in the present when I want to do them, when I want to say them... when they'll mean exactly what they're supposed to mean.