On changes and chances

If there is one life lesson I learned from working in a clothing store for three years (aside from the obvious-but-important rule 'always be nice to retail workers'), it is that nothing is permanent. Sales end, that cute shirt you were thinking about buying won't be there tomorrow, and employees come and go.
Life is a lot like that too. Our friends and family might seem like they're constantly around right now, but that won't always be the case. People die. People move away. People gradually get distant from you until the point where you have to think for a second to remember their face when you see their name on your Facebook feed. And it sucks.
There are so many reasons that it's painful, not the least of which are all the missed opportunities. If you don't tell someone how much they really mean to you, or you make 'someday' plans with them that never end up happening. You know the type - "We were gonna to watch that movie together someday." "We were going to go on this trip." "We were gonna try out that restaurant... But we never did". And then we sit around after the opportunity has passed us by, and think about the what-ifs. Meanwhile, we're missing even more opportunities while we're feeling sad. You know, 'Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.'
I've never been good with change. I've been that way my whole life. One example I can think of would be when I graduated elementary school - as miserable as I'd been there, I cried nearly every day that summer because I was scared of high school and I knew I would miss the familiarity and the closeness of my class group (albeit a class group that didn't like me).
Moving on from high school was even more difficult, because that was a place I'd actually felt comfortable, gained self-confidence and friends who loved and accepted me. I took a fifth year and many of my friends didn't, so that was an awkward transition phase because I was in a familiar place, but I was alone. However, I think it also kind of helped me move on, because I knew that wasn't where I belonged anymore.
Places change.

My grandpa grew up in a tiny town in Northern Ontario. When I was about twelve, my family and I went camping up there, and my grandpa took us on a tour. Practically everything he pointed out was something that was no longer there. "This was where the baseball diamond used to be." "That used to be my elementary school, it's a nursing home now." It seemed funny at the time, and the 'used-to-be' tour has become kind of an inside joke in our family, but it really makes me sad when I think about it. I'm only twenty, and so many places that held some significance for me as a child are already gone or different. I can't bear to think about how much will vanish in the years to come. And it also makes me think - if the old places and people are replaced with new ones, and we don't leave our mark on the new ones like we did the old, have we made an impact on anything?
Even my home changed a lot when I went away for school. My sisters had shared a room their whole lives, but when I moved out, one of them got my old room, and I got a bed in the corner of my mom's office downstairs. A lot of the time when I got homesick, I was longing for my old room - I wanted the same ceiling that I stared at for 14 years before going to bed. I wanted my furniture and my stuff placed how it had been for most of my life. But I came back to this place that didn't feel like my home. And as comfortable as I tried to make my residence room, I knew that it was only temporarily mine, so that wasn't really 'home', either. I felt lost.

And speaking of families, how awful is it to have a group - be they coworkers, classmates, or just friends - that you feel incredibly close to, to the point that they're like your surrogate family, and then circumstances change and because you don't see them anymore, nobody even talks to you? That really hurts. It's rejection en masse, and even if it's unintentional it still feels that way. Sometimes we forget people exist if they're not in our face all the time (either in physical proximity, or virtually).
And this may be just my own neurosis, but sometimes I feel like I really want to talk to someone I haven't seen in a while, but I don't because I feel like I'm intruding on their life, and I have no right to be there because we're not that close anymore. Or worse yet, I used to be really close to them and talked every day, but then they got a 'love interest' and suddenly I'm just not important to them anymore. If they've moved on in their lives and I haven't, I'm the one still dwelling in the past, then that's just awkward. They're not missing a little Emily-shaped part of themselves anymore, but I'm still missing them.
It might be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. People, like songs on the radio, might seem intriguing at first, but then become monotonous if they're in our heads constantly. It takes a few weeks without seeing the people/years without hearing the song to appreciate them again, feel nostalgic, and remember why we liked them in the first place.
I'm not saying we should keep everyone we've ever met around in our lives forever - of course not. If you have poisonous friends, or an abusive partner, then those people need to leave. But you can't help missing the part of them that wasn't mean, and that drew you to them in the first place. I know I wake up every day thanking the world that I don't have to see my elementary-school bullies - even if they did make me laugh from time to time.
It's the people I never intentionally separated from, the ones that just drifted away, the ones I used to share secrets and inside jokes with but then one day I look around and they're just not there, that make me really sad. Because try as I might - even if I happen to run into them randomly, or work up the courage to message them and ask how they are - we might suggest the 'someday' plan of meeting up for coffee, or even actually do it, and then too much is different. They're not the same people I knew years ago, because time has changed them. I'm sure they're sitting across the table from me thinking that I'm not the same person, either.

We ourselves change as a result of our experiences and interactions with others, either through a conscious decision or a gradual adjustment. But the thing is, we're constantly unhappy with at least one aspect of ourselves. Which leads to a (not always successful) attempt to change who we are. But we also look back constantly - 'I used to be so much skinnier/happier/more dedicated to school' and we wish we could get back what we'd had. And we forget that at the time when we were supposedly skinnier/happier etc., we were probably trying to change something else that we didn't like. Why can't we just like ourselves the way we are? Why are we constantly feeling ashamed of our emotions and our quirks and our habits? Unless those habits hurt other people (in which case we need to try hard as we can to earn their forgiveness, but you already knew that) then why aren't they just fine? It's kind of silly, when you think about it, the endless circles we go in of being hard on ourselves, and then going 'ugh, I hate how hard I am on myself'.
As we grow up, we also lose the sense of innocence we once had. There's no universal time this happens for anyone - but once it's gone, there's no getting it back. It's when we stop looking forward to growing up, and start dreading the future. It's when we know what death is, and are afraid of it. It's when we start being more afraid of the big bad world than we are amazed by the big beautiful one. When I was a kid, my dad would take me on day trips to Toronto and we'd take the subway. I always thought it was a magical train that went super fast underground and was bumpy like a roller coaster. Now I notice the stairwell that smells like vomit, or the cigarette butts on the ground, or the guy two rows down who's talking to himself. And I get annoyed by the bumpiness and how long it takes to get from station to station. It's the exact same subway. But I'm not the same little kid.

Our memories, despite being what we cling to when everything's moved on without us, fade too. Or worse yet, they get tainted by the 'knowing what comes next' until we can't enjoy them anymore. Books are comforting in that we can go back and revisit the time or place we miss, from the same vantage point as where we sat the first time we read it. It doesn't change. But even then, our personal experiences may have changed how we react to it. Or if something bad happens, say, a character dies, we are aware of this and can't enjoy them being alive because we're just bracing for the end.
If someone in our real life dies, or leaves us in another sense, every memory of them becomes coloured - however slightly - by the loss we feel at not having them around anymore. Whether they were in our lives for a reason or a season doesn't make us miss them any less.
Our memories, even those that don't involve other people, are an integral part of us, and if we lose them we lose ourselves. I, personally, am an obsessive scrapbooker. My mom is constantly telling me that I can't keep all these papers and cards and articles, that I won't ever have time to sort and organize them at the same rate as they build up. She might be correct about that, but I'm scared to part with anything because then I'm afraid I won't remember it. (I wonder, how many opportunities have I missed out on because I've been sitting in my basement scrapbooking? Let's not go there...)

Like the kid who touches the stove to see if it's hot, we should also remember our mistakes, or we'll be doomed to repeat them (for the record - staying up until 4:00 the night before an 8 a.m. lab, NOT a good idea), but we should also forgive ourselves for making those mistakes - and do our best to learn from them.
We also need to take the time to recognize the significance of the things we take for granted. For example, people hate being stuck in traffic, but as long as I'm not running late for something (my anxiety there is a topic for a whole other blog), I don't mind it. I'm cozy in the car, I have music, and I have the freedom afforded me by a driver's license. In the midst of the traffic, I wouldn't trade any of that for having to walk/bus/bike everywhere.

There's a line from the movie Dazed and Confused which I've always loved, in part because it worded so perfectly a concept I'd always struggled to phrase. A group of people are talking about how everything they do seems like it's in preparation for something, and the one girl says "You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor, insignificant preamble to somethin' else." And she's right! What exactly are we preparing ourselves for, if we're not even learning how to live or enjoy our lives, if we keep missing the opportunities that pass us by? (Who would have thought something so insightful would come from the stoner movie that gave us Matthew McConaughey's 'alright, alright, alright...'.)
We need to make our todays into our 'somedays'. Be a little impulsive - be spontaneous. One of the best decisions I ever made was buying tickets three days before a concert when I found out at the last minute that one of my favourite bands was playing in Toronto. I had an amazing time and I knew it was rare that they'd be in town (they haven't been back since!) so I bought the tickets without even hesitating, and I've never once regretted it. I definitely would have regretted not going.
There have also been many nights where I should have gone to bed, and didn't because I was enjoying spending time with, or talking to, people. Although I was kicking myself the next morning, no doubt, in the long run I've had a lot more worthwhile and memorable conversations at 3 a.m. than I've had memorable dreams. 

So through all this, the changes that I mentioned earlier, that we are so sad about, might not be so bad if we know we did the utmost we could before the change came. To paraphrase the infinite wisdom that is Albus Dumbledore - it does not do to dwell on the past and forget to live in the present. If we make as many happy memories as we possibly can, maybe we won't mind so much if we forget the minor ones. If we spend as much time with the people we love as is physically possible, we won't feel as bad when they eventually leave us. And we'll have more reasons to smile when remembering them, rather than thinking about all the things that 'could have' been. I never again want to start a story with 'well, we were going to do ____' unless it's followed up with 'but then we did _____ instead, and it was SO MUCH MORE AWESOME!!'
Don't sweat the little things. My eighth-grade grad quote (which I can't for the life of me remember the source of) was this: "I wonder how I'll get through life, but I know I'll survive. So I might as well have a little fun and some laughter along the way." So don't stress about what you'll be doing next month or next year. Make sure that you're getting the most joy out of the month or the year you're currently in. Carpe the heck out of that diem.
Take the little chances. Watch that movie. Take that vacation. Try out that restaurant. Work up the courage to talk to that cute guy/girl, and tell the important people just how much they mean to you. Make plans to spend time with them, and then follow through.
In that one sense (and I do mean that once sense ONLY), maybe we should try to be like that kid from We're the Millers and live with 'no ragrets'.
Not even a single letter. :)