Spren of Kindness

So, I've been thinking a lot about non-permanence and love lately, specifically when it relates to memory.  

Life changes.  People change.  We as individuals change.  I used to despise romance.  Now I don't.  

Some of those changes are big.  Some are small.  Some are small, but seem big, or vice versa, depending on age and worldview and how they affect us.

Have you ever seen someone after a few months and they've got a different haircut, or the way they act has changed, and it throws you off?  Or you visit an older family member, and are surprised to find that somewhere along the line, you've caught up with or surpassed them in height?  Or maybe that loved one's memory is not as strong as it used to be.  Maybe you have the same conversation more than once in a space of time that makes your heart break, just a little, because you already know.  You remember.  But they don't.  Not anymore.

When I was younger, I took a lot of pictures on a road trip.  This was shortly after I learned that my grandmother had dementia.  It wasn't bad, not then.  But all the same, it made me realize, one day, I might not remember this place.  Or these people.  So I took those pictures to have a slice of tangible memory.  A shard of permanence.  

I still take pictures.  Not as much as I did back then, but I still try to capture the moments where I can.  My perspective has changed, somewhat.  Because pictures are great.  But it's what they make me remember that I want to keep.  The flutter of happiness I feel when I see a picture of my friends and I having fun, being silly, back when we didn't have cares or worries.  The bittersweetness of remembering the days when my grandparents were younger and more active, and I didn't know what growing old meant.  That strange feeling of seeing a picture of someone you like, and knowing it has a meaning for you that it may never have for them, and learning to be okay with that, but still hoping.

Life can feel like it stretches on forever, sometimes.  Or it can feel like a mere heartbeat in the face of eternity.  Many's the time I've said that our concept of years and days is a social construct, and maybe I'm misusing that concept.  But time is.  And we only have so much of it, and our lives will change during it, in so many ways.  So enjoy it.  Tell people you love them, or show them, or do both.  It can be the best thing someone hears or experiences.

Those are things that I've struggled with.  I still struggle with it.  Saying 'I love you' can be such a weighted phrase in a good and bad way.  But it's so important.  The times I've been told 'I love you' are some of my best memories, even if they happened in situations that were... not the best.  Knowing I was loved in those moments changes them in retrospect.

All this is a really long, round-about way to say the last two paragraphs.  I have no idea if it's coherent.  But I needed to say it.