Two things:

1) Whenever someone mentions a familiar name from my past, I immediately picture them in my head as how they were/looked/appeared when I knew them best—I picture them as the same person they once were in my memory.

Untouched by time.

Then, years later when I come across pictures of them, I still see them just as they were— the same 3rd grader— but then I’m blinded by the unfamiliarity of a stranger. Like someone fogged up a mirror, the familiar face is there… but just barely.

It puzzles me every time, yet I love trying to see past the layers of make-up, the bleached highlights, the big muscles in attempt to unearth and bring back the naiveness of a familiar friend.

2) Funny how friendships are like eggs. You fumble with them and they go splat and after the fall you realize it’s impossible to reverse back to the original beautiful state they once were and that they are not only shattered on the ground, but the insides are now on outside… rotting and smelly.

So when you come across the good eggs, you learn to hard boil them, so then when you do accidently drop/bump/hurt them, you can just peal back the cracked hard layer and still enjoy all the good stuff.