Do You Ever Miss It?
Do you ever miss the days of being younger and all the simple day-to-day complications? I remember before I had my license, on half days, me and my friends would walk from our school to Dunkin. It seemed like whether it be rain or shine, hot or up to our knees in snow, we walked to Dunkin. I had a lot of good friends to do those walks with. I miss the friends I used to do those walks with. When you're young, you think of permanence as such a common thing. You're permanently in school, you're permanently friends with people, you're permanently stuck walking everywhere with your permanent friends after your days of permanent schooling. But then you graduate, you lose touch with friends you thought would always be around you, and even if they weren't around you, you still lived close enough to see them. Then that reality of permanence is broken. You start to realize nothing is permanent, which makes life easier, but more harsh. You realize school isn't permanent. Someone else doesn't set you on a course of what to learn. After school, you decide what to learn to do for four or so years so you can have a job for forty or so years. Or you choose not to learn anything at all. And even those choices may not be permanent, you can always change your mind. As much as we hated the idea of permanently being stuck in school, I look back now and find comfort and certainty in that permanence. I find even more comfort in the permanence of friends. Because after high school, the permanent friends I had turned into ghosts. But in losing so many formerly permanent friends are, I found better friends. Friends who still have a hope of being permanent. This was a touch, but harsh realization. My circle of friends grew smaller, but in becoming smaller, it was able to become tighter. It was kind of like a plant whose roots used to span an entire forest, so far apart, so hard to maintain, shrunk to occupy a small place in a garden, easier to maintain itself. Also, giving room in the garden for other things to grow, new friendships to bloom, new ideas grow into new realizations and life lessons. Even though I miss having a lot of friends, I like not having to constantly concentrate on so many relationships being maintained. In the end, this smaller group of friends will walk with me through life, if their permanence persists, rain or shine, hot or up to our knees in snow, caught up in finding our own directions in life. No matter where those directions may pull us all, these smaller roots will always be able to pull us back together.
