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  I have always been the one to comfort people when they miss the past, saying things like, "The golden years are just beginning", and "Yes, that memory is great - but you'll make many, many more that are so much better!" I have always been the one trying to keep people's spirits up when it seems like the best is behind them. But today I'm realizing, as I do some days more than others, that sometimes it really does hurt that some things/people/memories will never come back.

  The worst thing about this is that most of the time, it's not that the people are dead or truly gone; it's not that you won't ever see them again. Most of the time, it's that some dynamic has changed. You're not as close as you were to another person. Something happened that makes it awkward or even painful to have the same kind of relationship that you did before. Sometimes you must settle for a lesser form of what you used to have with someone. Sometimes they change. Sometimes you change. Sometimes you just have to accept that although they still live and breathe, they are no longer apart of your life at all.

  Today, as I look back over what seems to be a graveyard of friendships, I feel a mixture of happiness for the good memories, sadness for the fact that I can never relive them, and anger over the things that divided us. I could go on and on about all the things I feel and all the ways that people have changed, but I'll suffice it to say that sometimes, it just hurts; and no amount of reassurance that the future will be even brighter can change that.