Stand By Me

We recently watched Stand By Me for the first time. Watching it reminded me of what it was like to be a kid again. It reminded me of the adventures you would have with your best friends. It reminded me of what it was like to be innocent and naive about the world that lay beyond your door. It reminded me of days when the greatest things seemed to come in the future and it was so hard to live in the present. Now there is more responsibility. More anxiety. Less imagination. More cynicism.

More than my childhood I thought about my friends. When we are children it seems like our friends will be our friends forever. Some of us imagine growing old with our friends in the same town. As we grow older some friends leave our lives and others enter it. This happens a little in high school when typically the same crowd moves from one school to the next, but with the move people change. Entering college we leave behind many of the people we knew in high school and meet a whole new group of people in college. It now becomes difficult to keep in touch with high school friends. I know I'm rambling, but as I was running today I was thinking about so much that I want to put most of it down.

The reason I'm writing this is because where I am in my life I feel like there are some friends that in the past I was very close to and that is no longer the case. This is not meant to place blame on friends, because I'm sure I'm as much to blame as anyone. Rather I just want to acknowledge the friends that I miss as they move on with their lives and out of mine. It is also meant to appreciate the friends that are entering my life. It is meant to fondly remember the friends who have been a part of my life, however brief, in the past.

I guess what I have learned from all this is that there are no guarantees in life and that we should embrace all the friends in our life for the time that they are there.