It’s true people come and go. Common, normal people. People like you and me.

I bet you’ve already realized this. What I’m really not sure is if you’ve given a thought to the fact that perhaps you’re the one who walked away from them. There was nothing wrong, you think, but there was also nothing right. There was nothing at all. No love, no hard feelings, no trust, no empathy. Nothing. Nothing that would make you go away. Nothing that would keep you there anyway.

There was no thrill, no meaning in that connection. It just didn’t make sense for it gave you nothing and you had nothing to add up to it. So you preferred to ignore that last invitation for dinner and stayed home playing video games. And then you never called back. But they did, didn’t they? They invited you for a hike. Then for a party. For breakfast. For lunch. Drinks? Dinner? Hi?

We usually think about the ones we miss yet we don’t really remember the ones who miss us. If I were to guess, I’d say it is because we don’t miss them as much. 

We perceive our connections the way our heart commands us to. We value some connections more than others the same way we are valued more or less by those same connections of ours. Pretty much the same way we consider there is a connection where there was never any connection at all. Works both ways. The truth is some people weren’t even there-there. Just as you weren’t there for someone who needed you to be.

People are like asteroids entering a planet’s orbit. They come in quickly, join the flow, clash and crash. They never crash alone though. They shatter in pieces and hit all other asteroids on their way affecting their trajectories irreversibly.

A long time ago one of those collisions changed my life. It has now made me think about how people come and go and it made me realize how many times I’ve let go of those who needed me the most. 

Like I said, people come and go after they serve a purpose in our life. Usually it’s giving us some sort of lesson that we’ll understand later in time rather than something pragmatic and immediate. And this is why we remember and regret and also why we forgive and forget.

So I dare you:

Make that phone call you’ve been postponing for so long you’re even ashamed of trying. And to you on the other side, pick the phone up. After all, you do it all the time, don’t you? I mean it. Stop what you’re doing and call one of those people you miss. They’re living a distant life but so are you.