It's been nine years since last I saw your face, since last we laughed together about silly and familiar things.  We were an alliance glued together by time, circumstance and inside jokes.  Yes we were quite a pair; yes we were quite a team.  I can't say exactly when it was or how it exactly happened but I know that just as the seasons change as did we until there was nothing but a whisper of a memory left between us.  Your face changed and in the place where I used to find comfort and refuge had now turned into a configuration of strange features I found difficult to recognize.  We tried, I'll give us that, tried so hard to hold together pieces of a puzzle that would no longer fit.  We had grown up, grown weary of one another, grown apart and finally moved on. 

It was virtually transparent, and just about painless, a gradual ungluing of a friendship that had diminished as suddenly as it has been established.  Suddenly there was no time for one another, suddenly there was too much "life" in the way and before too long we had been silent for far to long that when we finally did speak there was nothing left to say.  We didn't even really say goodbye, just dillydallied our own separate ways, found new friends, new loves, new interests and new inside jokes.  We never forgot though, still keep old pictured weathered in a shoe box, old letters full of silly adolescent dreams, hopes and worries, old mementoes only we would understand and smile about.

What happened to us?  What happened to all of those relationships out there that end without rhyme without reason and without the slightest bit of explanation?  There is something so innocent about two, or three, or four people meeting each other by chance and creating a world that they all reside in.  Laughing, having fun, bridging gaps and creating memories.  I suppose all things have a beginning and an end, all friendships form and falter and very few survive the test of time, the test of change.

Change comes for us all, it comes in waves of opportunity and apprehension, and we move with a timid grace toward the things that pull and call to us and summon us the most.  There is no shame in moving on, no hard feelings in a wordless goodbye, no excuse plausible enough to justify the reasons for our departure.  This is just the way things are.

But there is always a spark of hope, not all things lost are gone forever.  There is always a chance for one more meeting, a drink for old time's sake, a lunch to reminisce and remember, a coffee date to talk about the good ole days, or just a drive to reenact so many drives before.

Moments are always taken for granted until they are slowly diminished into a lonely parallel universe forever traveling at the speed of light down memory lane.  Friendships come and friendships go but the feeling will forever stay the same.  So whether it's a friendship that has withstood the test of time, space and the continuum of all things intervening, or one that has shriveled up and died in both of your memories.  It's never too late to catch up and smile about the past and consort about the future.

By: Lucky Clover