Thank God, It's Friday!

It's only in the hour of separation that emotion reveals its true depth. Have you noticed that you only become truly yourself when it's finally time to say goodbye.

Some people come into our lives and go as quickly as they came, some stay a while and leave their mark on us, and we are never quite the same again. Some we make friends with, some we let go of. Either way, separation leaves a bit of a bitter taste behind.

Growing up is harder than we ever expect it to be. The older we get, the lonelier we become. Think back to when you were just beginning to notice this world, your first friend at home, a sibling, and then so many more through school and college. There were plenty of them once. How many are you still holding on to? You let go of most, perhaps all. Moving on mattered, because we wanted to make a living, and somewhere in that rhythm we moved ahead a little too far, didn't we.

It's easy to let life shrink into simply making a living, instead of making a life. I realise that now.

The good news is that we are, at heart, social creatures. We know how to keep going, how to fill the space someone leaves behind, not because it's easy, but because life doesn't wait for us to catch our breath. For the ones who go, new people eventually arrive. We call it moving ahead.

But what do we do, then, with the ones taken from us for good. I have this sneaking feeling that the older I get, the crueler that becomes. I may end up attending more funerals than weddings before this is done.

I've always wondered why we can't gather everyone we love in one place and simply stay there. I suppose that wouldn't work either. Someone would leave. Someone always does.

I think this is simply how it works. Every parting deserves to be let go of gently, in its own time. The real question is how we carry ourselves through it, how we face it when it comes. Goodbyes aren't so bad, as long as we leave something of ourselves behind in the people we loved.

So to whoever is reading this now, know this: whatever we shared has already changed me, and that isn't something distance can take back. We may drift into different cities, different lives, even different people, but if we did this right, some part of you stays with some part of me, always.

Let's celebrate life until then. Thank God, it's Friday.