Often, I find myself thinking about all the people who I no longer speak to. I’m constantly lost in thought over every person who I will never see again.
I think about the best friend I had in preschool, the school nurse who made me a better person. I think about the two old women who were always waiting at the bus stop in front of my house. It’s not as if they died but it has been years since we’ve seen each other and I don’t know if we will ever meet again.

Sometimes I’ll watch T.V. and an old show will be on; a show that’s been off the air for years now. I like to watch the last season of those shows. It will occasionally take the audience back to a character that hasn’t been seen since the first season. Maybe it’ll even mention what they’ve been up to, who they are now.

When I was a kid, I used to think of my life in seasons. I used to keep an eye out for old friends. I used to find joy in running into a former algebra teacher. Or my brother’s childhood best friend. It felt like things were tying themselves up into a neat, little bow.

But I’m starting to think life doesn’t work that way.

I’m always looking for these people who I will probably never see again. I’ve gone on long walks, purely concentrated on remembering the last name of my favorite bus driver. I’m thinking about everyonet all day long.
I think about all the places I’ve been without realizing that I have been there for the last time. The pediatrics department of my doctors office. The Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas that I have not stayed at since I was 7.

I think about all the moments in my life, big or small. that shaped the person I am today without even realizing they were those moments.

I’ve always had a bad perception of time. I’ve never been able to sit down somewhere and tell the difference between an hour passing by compared to five minutes.

But that perception is not limited to numbers on a clock. It is not just a matter of figuring out the time. It is a matter of staying in the right time.

I’m 22 but I was just eleven years old yesterday. I was walking home from school. It was 4 O’clock on a cloudy Friday. When I walked in the door, my brother was watching Family Guy and started to tell me about his day. Now that same brother has a wife and two children and lives eight hours away from me.

I’m 22 years old. I’m single, no children. The other day I was driving down the street and my mind jumped ahead to a day in the future where this car will no longer be around. The engine will be dead, the parts will be scrapped, and I’ll have two kids and a wife. I’ll be driving down the street with car seats in the backseat of my minivan. And I’ll see a Toyota Camry parked on a street somewhere.

I’ll think that today, right now, was such a long time ago.

Sometimes I look at my parents and I think about them in their twenties. I see them as the same age that I am. I wonder if we would have been friends.

I once picked up my niece while she was napping and carried her to bed. I laid her down, took her shoes off, and pulled a blanket up over her. I tried to picture her as a sixteen year old. I tried to picture this little person, who comes up and asks to open playdough, will still want to talk to me.
My nephew is only two. He’s a verbal late bloomer. I think about the times he will someday come home from school and tell me about his day. Or maybe he will be just as quiet as he is now.

I think I might be a time traveler. I’m always all over the place.

The other day I pulled off the freeway and onto the side of the road. I broke down into gasping sobs because my uncle had died. He passed away when I was 16. I think that was the first time I realized he was never coming home again.I think that was the first time I ever cried for him.  

Time is tricky. People say I have an old soul but maybe I just have old eyes. Maybe that’s why I’m stressing out on a mortgage bill that’s due on a house that I’m not even close to owning yet.
The other day, I had felt this deep sadness all day long. People kept asking me what was wrong but I thought it would have been silly to say that once, when I was 6 years old, my mother bought me a balloon at a park and it floated away and I’m still upset over it.

People aren’t like seasons. One day they’re here, the next they’re gone.
People aren’t like anything else around.
When it’s been sunny for awhile, I always know it will rain again, eventually. When I plant a tree, I know it’ll either grow. Or it’ll die. I won’t just look outside one day at a tree that has run away from home.
I don’t know if I’ll see certain people again.
I don’t know what has happened or what might happened.

Time has always been a tricky thing for me.

I try to make constants in my life.

Little anchors that let me know that this life is still my life.
Like when you see a silver car in a parking lot with a bunch of other silver cars, and you can still somehow recognize which one is your car.

I like to drink coffee. I always have.

It’s one of my constants. I drank coffee throughout my childhood and I drink coffee now.
I probably always will.
On the mornings when I shockingly have nothing to do, I like to make myself a big *** of coffee. It doesn’t matter if I’m at home or not. I’ve made coffee in hotel rooms, I’ve made coffee in ex lovers apartments. Even if it is not very good coffee.

My 8 year old hands hold onto the coffee mug, letting it’s warmth seep through my entire body. I’ll sit down, close to a window somewhere.
My 22 year old eyes taking in all the sites. I have drank coffee on windy fall mornings. I’ve drank coffee in a motel right next to the beach. I like to watch the waves hit the water. I like to watch joggers jog by the house.
I like to drink my coffee and look outside at my grandchildren playing in the backyard.

My one, true constant.

I’ll take a sip from that coffee, from whenever I am. And I’ll start to think about all the people I have seen for the last time.

And all the ones I have met to meet for the first time.