Always Learning About You

People come and go from our lives. Some stay only through one, or maybe two chapters of our lives and are forever gone. And some come back - for another short while, or forever. Others... stick around. They're merely strangers who somehow happen to become your friends after years of running into each other. Or friends who become best friends. Or best friends who become family. Or family who become best friends.

Why do people connect with you at one point, but not at another? Why do some acquaintances stay in our lives for years, while loved ones leave? Why do friendships fade away? Why can people stay in love, while others can't?

How it all happens, I don't know. Do I believe in fate? In happenstance? In serendipity? In coincidence? In right place at the right time? Maybe it doesn't matter. The only important thing, I suppose... is that it happens.

I have people in my life who have come and gone. And come back again. I have people in my life who have stuck around. Who have gotten close to me, who I've connected with. But at times we come to a lull, where things aren't clicking as easily... and then, things tend to pick up again, especially with my dearest friends. Truthfully, it's all that back and forth that's kept it so worthwhile.

I know I'm always learning from people around me. Friends who have gone from my life sometimes come back to offer so much insight. They're so familiar, and yet so new. Their changes make you learn about them, from them... and about yourself. Friends who have stuck around offer even more insight. Even after you think you know your closest friends inside out, you continue to get a better understanding of who they are with everyday that goes by. New things happen to everybody each day, changing us and shaping us little by little - and it's noticing and keeping up with the new tid bits of one another in each new situation, no matter how little they are, that's the challenge, and the reward.

Maybe it's been more obvious to me lately, as the people around me are growing more and more into themselves. Maybe it's the twenties. But I'd like to believe that this growth of ourselves within each other... will go on always.

So, dear friends who have played such important parts in my life, I shall never take you for granted and always keep learning about you. You're becoming more whole to me each time we're together. And those who have left me thus far, whether we've exchanged only two words, or shared two years of memories, I look forward to the possibility of getting to know you better again. Because who knows...? Until the day I breathe my last breath, you and I might meet again.