Pictures
We live in a pretty moveable society. Meaning, we move around a lot, or even if we don't, others will. We lose people, or at least think we do. Sometimes it is simply that attitude we assume that pushes people out. Others make choices that separate us. Sometimes, things just happen.
Photos are really powerful. I have been cleaning my room this week, and have come across photos going back to the 5th grade. It is kinda eerie to look at those happy times and think wow, back then I never though about where I'd be at this point in my life. There was the fifth grade trip to D.C., which brough back all the memories of how excited I was to see the dinosaur bones at the Smithsonian. I came across middle school photos, with me looking awkward, playing the upright base or the viola in the ill-fitting uniforms we had to wear. Mixed in there were photos of a friend that took his own life in 04--But from those pictures, from that time in our lives, you would never guess.
I found pictures from junior prom, with my lovely dress whose straps kept slipping off my shoulders. We looked so young, but felt so grown back then... I found all the slides left over from my AP art portfolios, and all the mixed feeling that went on with those. I found pictures of my cousin after that, and felt a little sad to think he never got a chance to go to a prom, or many of the things I know I've taken for granted.
But even after that, the thing that makes me wonder the most is the ease in which we enter and exit other's lives. Because even then, sometimes the impressions and influence we leave on someone can last long after we've drifted out of their life...