Life is Your Story

We all have one. It’s someone you loved (whether or not they loved you back), still love and think of often. You carry them around with you everywhere and all throughout your life. You wonder if you will run into them at some obscure time for one intense moment and if you did, you wonder what you would say. You remember their face so clearly that you can see it whenever you search the back of your mind. Your life goes on and you share it with another and all of its complexities keep you busy and running but on a dark night while driving home or on a sleepy Sunday while hanging out on the couch; the memory of them seeps out from your pores and it brings all of the regrets, frustration, pain and happiness back in one mighty swoop. Sometimes you consider looking them up – finding them – calling them and seeing if you can be friends. You imagine yourself showing up on their doorstep and everything being okay and embracing in a warm hug. Other times you hope...

The friendships you create and nurture when you are younger are different than the ones you establish later in life. The friends who grew up with you knew your entire family. They played in your house and sometimes their siblings and your siblings and a whole gang of neighbourhood kids joined together for a game of baseball or hockey or just to hang around in the park doing nothing and doing everything. They also knew things that friends you meet later in life will never know like the smell of your house/family. You know the way every family has their “smell” They also knew if your mom was a good cook and enjoyed her best meals and desserts and they knew what type of food was in your fridge and in your pantry and how much of it they could get away with eating without feeling uncomfortable. There was that one house where everyone hung out either because the parents were away often or they just didn’t care if there were 20 kids in their basement doing whatever they were doing....