People You Once Knew

It's pitiful how you can easily lose touch with people you were once so completely attached to. People you swore were so essential to your being that a day when you would no longer be close seemed unimaginable. And as much as you wish you could, it feels awkward to reach out after so much time as passed.

If you do, what would you talk about? Would you go back to hashing out intimate details like you once did? Or would you say, "I'm ok. Work is busy. Dreadful weather we're having?" If you do run into them, do you make promises to "keep in touch and let's get together" knowing full well a year might blow by without so much as a phone call? Do you wish they'd just pick up the phone - reverting time in doing so - just because you can't muster up the courage to do it yourself because you're too scared to discover time has created two different people?

Funny how one moment you could be sharing your whole life with someone and the next you're wondering if they remember the days when you were inseparable. When you couldn't go anywhere alone without someone asking where your other half was. When you'd pass secret notes in class, struggle through school, analyze crushes, plan a future together, cry on their shoulder, drive around singing along to the radio. People who'd grow to become your mentor, best friend, surrogate parent/sibling, boyfriend, confidante, keeper of all your silly fears and dreams now reduced to "people you once knew."

Strange how you could spend so much time with someone, their speech, their mannerisms, their humor starts to seep into your own being creating this lovely mesh you continue to carry on long after that connection dissolves.

Life happens. You live, you grow, you move on, you try to keep casualties to a minimum. And you carry those little bits you collected onto the next day. You add it to your essence so you enter the next phase just a tiny bit different, changed in some way. Now you tap your nose when you think, you tell different jokes, certain songs make you laugh for some odd reason, you use new slang, you start saying "awesome" and a new list of everyday objects take on new meaning for you.

And no matter how much time lapses, how far back into your memory those moments reside, they still surface with a "whoosh!" once the right thing triggers it. That's when you realize how much you've forgotten and how much it feels like it was all part of a lovely story you once read.

This is for 10 certain people who are slowly becoming people I once knew. I miss the things they used to be for me.

Image: allposters.com