I have lived and loved with so many people, and I feel so enriched by the experience. The sad fact is that the majority of those people are now just faces in old photographs, addressed on crumpled bits of paper or names that are no longer known by my lips. These are people I was close to and I assumed I always would be. We laughed and sometimes cried, we share our lives for a brief moment in the grand spectrum of our mortal existence. We seized the moment and made it ours, no thoughts for the future and certainly no mention of departing from each others presence. The thought of our feelings changing or even dying, was unimaginable. But the day always comes where we must move on physically as well as emotionally. We part company and swear we will remain great friends by staying in touch. And stay in touch we do.......for a while. Then slowly, quietly, without warning, you suddenly realise what has happened. They have become a personal statistic, another "Oh, I used to know him" or "I knew someone from there once". What is worse, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. It is a process of life over which the individual had no control. No matter how hard they try or how good their intentions are, the sad realisation of a friend becoming a memory will be a reoccurring event....for everyone.
So should we stop meeting people if we think there is a chance that we will get hurt by the experience? I have had many great people who have passed in to and out of my life and most I will probably never see again. That is a fact. However it is also a fact that from each person I have gained a new idea, an enlightenment, a lesson or a experience. I carry a small part of them now, each and every one of them. If I had chosen to stop meeting new people for the fear of being hurt, I would not be where I am or who I am today. If I stop now, I will never develop in to my full potential. Life is not designed to be a lonely experience. So as I sit here and look at the people around me, I can't help but become resigned to the fact that the pile of old photographs, the drawer of crumpled addresses and my memory bank of names, are all about to grow. On the same hand though, as they grow, so am I.
