almost october

this time last year, i was in san francisco...just about to begin my work with 826. weird how that feels so far away now. i often miss the places i have lived, the people and the favorite spots i left behind. sometimes, just going through an ordinary day, i will find myself overcome with a memory of some past moment--of what seems like a past life.

today, i was thinking of all of my wonderful college friends. i was looking through a friend's photos and thinking of all of the people that i have passed my days with. sometimes i get sad, thinking that some people will never be as close to me as they once were. people whom i love and admire--people whose advice and encouragement helped me get through more than one rough patch. and it's not that i don't have room enough in my heart for each and every one of these cherished friends. it's simply distance. distance can undo so very quickly bonds you thought would last forever. i believe only the very deepest of relationships can withstand it. so, i am left with a bittersweet nostalgia for all of these past ties; for all of those wonderfully gifted and amazing people, friends, with whom I have shaped and sharpened, laughed and loved, cherished, tried, ranted, created, dreamed, studied, cried and coped. there will always be pieces of them in me.

i chastise myself for not writing letters or picking up the phone. for not letting people know how wonderful they are, or that someone is glad just knowing they are alive in the world. i always feel like it won't be enough. what trite phrase will capture the depth of memory and longing? and if there are such words, when is there time to orchestrate the masterpiece that might satiate? these are my thoughts...and so, the distance widens. but i am at peace. i have had to learn that people and places come and go, in and out of our hearts and memories. they are no less significant having exited; in fact, sometimes the truest significance cannot be recognized until after its passing. and so we are shaped. and so we love and lose and continue loving just the same.