ah ha.

If anyone is reading this, I have to warn you, sometimes, and this is a real once in awhile sort of deal, well, sometimes, I go soft. I start writing about feelings and all this stuff. You've been warned.

Every time someone walks out of your life (see road of life, left), it makes you wonder why they were in it at all. At least, I wonder. Some people are around for years, impacting your daily routine and weekly schedule. These are the people you drink your coffee with in the morning and spend Saturday night with, vacation in the mountains with and phone at 4 am for no good reason. These people are so involved in your life that your lives can even become intertwined and it can be emotionally complicated to untangle the beautiful mess you've created, though, in time, like any other knot, someone finds a way. Other times it is a brief encounter of only a few minutes. It is a man you exchanged glances with in the hall, a girl in the bathroom line, or the old man that sold you some bananas at the grocery store. Sometimes, it is these brief encounters that make the biggest impacts, reminding you of these other people that have come and gone. Sometimes, in these quick moments, something happens. In an instant, this other character comes to the front of your mind for reasons you don't understand, I don't understand. I've been having a lot of brief encounters, reminding me of folks that aren't as geographically close as I'd like them to be. Today, these brief encounter people make me a little sad as everyone doesn't live next door anymore.