Time is a Funny Thing, Really

     Time is an interesting concept.  Each person's conceptualization of time is different and one's own perception often changes depending on what is happening in their life.
     Everyone has people in their lives: family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc.  These people, however, do not change for the most part. You're linked to your family by blood and mostly maintain those relationships out of necessity or obligation.  Friendship, however, is a completely different story.
     Throughout my nearly 25 years on this Earth there has been a constant wax and wane in my relationships, both platonic and romantic.  Lately I've been consumed by this idea. Someone you may have called your best friend a few months ago may now feel like a complete stranger now.  People you meet may become close friends almost instantly. Despite the advances in technology, particularly in social networking, maintaining close bonds with people can be a difficult and time-consuming task.  People enter and exit your lives constantly.  Each interaction with another human being, no matter how brief, has at least a minimal influence on our emotional and social lives.
     This concept originally dawned on me a few months ago.  As an ESL teacher at a school where students come from all over the world to study English for a few months (sometimes less, sometimes more), I often find  myself saddened when students leave.  Some may have only been there one, three, six months or a year, but nonetheless, bonds are formed through interaction with these people. I spend five out of seven days with my students, whom I really enjoy meeting, getting to know and also whom I learn many interesting things about life abroad and also hear unbiased opinions about the city I have called home since I was born. It amazes me how close you can become with people you barely knew when you first met them. Some of these bonds continue after they leave, but many do not. I've been at this job for approximately nine months now and it's really beginning to hit me that for the time being at least, I will always be there but these people will eventually learn all there is to know and then move on to do bigger and better things either in the US or back in their home countries. Throughout my time at ELS language centers I have met countless numbers of interesting, unique and beautiful people from all over the globe. This has also made me itchy to travel more.
     Friends can be a rather different story. Especially in youth, it is common to think of your closest friends as people will be there for your entire life. Think back on high school.  You had your closest friends and assumed that they would remain as such forever. Then you go away to college.  New people enter your life, you're busy with classes and social activities and your relationships with those friends from high school (or before) dwindle slowly and eventually may even disappear all together.  That person or those people whom you thought you knew every little tid-bit about slowly become like strangers. Yes, this may not happen for some people who are lucky enough to maintain those bonds, but I think for most this is a common occurrence. After college, maintaining friendships with these people is a difficult, but possible task, depending how good you are at staying in touch with people. After college many of your friends move to different cities or states or even countries and these people whom you saw every day for four years become people you talk to occasionally but possibly see only once a year.
     But the friendships I've been pondering in detail lately are those that were formed after college, once I entered the working world. These occur spontaneously, randomly, and often completely by chance. Particularly with people you meet in the work place are these friendships formed. Even if you become instantly close to a person, this bond can be broken gradually by differences of opinions or plans for the future. If one friend receives a promotion their clique of people will change to others in their rank and if you have not been so fortunate as to be promoted as well, then often times you are dropped from that person's life.  Someone you were once very close with can become like a different person altogether. These changes happen slowly and therefore hurt less.
    But abrupt change is what is difficult.  Perhaps you have a falling-out with a close friend or break up with your significant other. These are both events that occur very quickly and can hurt us very deeply. One such incidence occurred to me a few months ago.  My (now ex-) best friend and I had a falling out and it was difficult to deal with the pain.  Of course, at first my anger muted this feeling, but more recently I've been quite sad about it. It is very difficult to adjust from seeing and talking to someone every day to never speaking with them at all. But, this happens all the time. It's part of growing up.  Just like job responsibilities and the tasks required of you when you become an adult (whatever that means) make maintaining close friendships extremely difficult, particularly for me, who is completely consumed by my job which I adore.
     And then there are romantic relationships, of course. Breakups are something we all experience, usually multiple times throughout our lives, but really thinking about it is difficult. But thinking about it while you are still in mourning over your lost love and looking at that relationship in retrospect are two entirely different things. Maybe you considered this person not just a boyfriend or girlfriend but also as a life companion, best friend or even future spouse. Often these people are such an important part of your life and then they abruptly disappear.  This is partly because people, particularly in your teens and twenties, tend to grow, develop and learn to understand their own character and recognize their goals more easily. Due to this, compatibility in the romantic sphere can become obvious over time and the people in that couple tend to go their separate ways. I've been in two serious, long-term relationships in my life and find it strange to think that while I spent two years with each of these people I now have no form of communication with them and have no idea what they are doing. Part of me has a genuinely plutonic, not romantic, interest in their lives. When someone is there for so long it's hard to not  be curious. There have been more bizarre and complicated relationships, trysts, affairs, or whatever you'd like to call them since my break up with my last boyfriend, but those could be an entirely different entry and this topic is not a tangent I'd like to elaborate on at the moment.
     In summary, it's wil to think of all the people we encounter on a daily basis. There are billions of people in the world, which seems like an unfathomable number, but if you think about all the people you've known, met briefly, or even just exchanged glances with on the subway or in the grocery store that number certainly seems less daunting.
     I am grateful for everyone in my life: past, present, and those I will meet in the future. But if you get a chance, sit back and think about this idea.  It is sort of sad because ideally maintaining contact with everyone you've ever known would be nice (despite being nearly impossible), but on the bright side, be curious about the new person that could enter your life and impact it in a meaningful way.  Maybe it will happen tomorrow, next week, next year or in five years. Either way, people are always coming and going in our lives and the logistics and complications of these life relationships will always be difficult to understand.