Spare Change

Man, I really have to keep writing in my blog.

I've had so much on my mind lately that I've just forgotten all about it. It'll be great to finally get some of that out and put out some more thought provoking questions at the same time. I do have to thank a bit of a twist of fate that I was inspired to write in my blog again. Being World Cup season for soccer or football across the pond, I wanted to go somewhere to watch it, so I decided to have lunch at my local sushi bar. While I was planning to eat alone, I ran into a long time good friend of mine who I've known essentially since I've moved to Loveland, and she invited me to sit with her. She was a big fan of my blog and asked if I had written anything recently, and to tell her the truth, I hadn't. We talked over the course of our time together, and it made me realize how different things have been since I first knew her nearly 4 years ago.

Time flies. What an understatement.

So after leaving the restaurant that afternoon I really started to think about what exactly I could write about. And I feel like one of the biggest points in my life right now is that it's changing. Uncontrollably. I just graduated from high school and I'm heading into the next phase of my life: adulthood. It's a big, wide, scary new place. But that's another topic for another day. What I really focused on is the entirety of my high school life, and even my life in general, and just assessed the factor of change in the thing that means most to me: people. Friends. Acquaintances. Family. Just everyone that has come and gone into my life. For better or for worse. Who I wished I had still and who I wish would just dissipate into the void.

And that brought up an interesting thought.

I saw a great video on the way humans physically change over the course of time. Well, maybe not so much physically more so than microscopically. The video mentions that in a typical person, the atoms they have today will all be completely different atoms in five years. Essentially, in the span of five years, you are physically no longer the person you were five years ago at all. It's a pretty remarkable concept to consider, especially since five years really is not a long time in actuality. Yet, to presently think about all of the events in your life the past five years is a herculean task. It's difficult to even say how different I am from a month ago. However it's not necessarily the physical attributes that are highlighted in that change, but more of the internal and external retrospects of my life. To correlate the two lies an interesting theory.

Do we naturally change on the inside as we do outside?

The obvious answer is yes. Of course we are constantly changing, we are definitely not the same person with the same values as when we were 9 years old. But even as we get older to a more static age range, 30-45 perhaps, our persona is constantly changing day to day in the slightest ways. Eventually, it seems like we are two completely different people in the way we carry ourselves, our friends, our habits, our values. After meeting with my friend at sushi, it took me back to the time where her and I associated often. The time from then and now is so radically different and it was only 4 years past. I hadn't met some of the greatest people to be in my life now. I hadn't discovered the passions that would now drive the rest of my future. I had not become the person I can say I am happy with being today. It was a fantastic reminiscence of what I have transformed into today.

But it kind of hurt, too.

On the contrary, remembering my past and where I have come from also reminded me of the people I have had at one point that are no longer there. Reflecting upon past actions is a gift and a curse, because although reflection provides an incredible display of past achievements, past failures are recorded just as heavily and presented largely in the forefront of memory. And that's kinda what I've succumbed to after a long vacation away from society (which will definitely be discussed in more detail eventually): how I've changed. How others have changed subsequently through my actions. It really affects me to see how the people I once loved and once had the utmost respect for are now people that are no longer part of my life. Especially when you know they're out there. That's what cuts deep. So many people in my life are so different and I wish it just wasn't that way because it just hurts everyone. But perhaps it's for the better. Perhaps this is the universe telling me that there are just better things to come. I mean, as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another's treasure.

What I wouldn't give for some spare change.