Seashells

I collect people. There are often times I meet someone and I just "click" with them. Almost as if our souls are made out of the same stuff. It may be because we laugh at the same dumb jokes, maybe that we have the same opinion of seafood, maybe we have a similar family situation,  or maybe they just simply get me. Whatever the reason for clicking with these people is, they instantly become MY people. They are the ones I run to if something goes wrong and the ones I call if something goes extremely right. I attach to them. Not in the creepy psycho ex-girlfriend kind of way, just in the I need them in my life because they make me feel like everything is going to be okay, kind of way. 

Over the years I have found many of these type of people. I have seemed to pick them up and put them in my heart just as if they were little seashells on the ocean shore I was putting in my purse. My people are all ages, all personalities, and all sorts of crazy. and I LOVE it. They have gotten me through the roughest times, and celebrated with me in the best. I believe that people are suppose to be in our lives for certain reasons, and the reason for this special kind of people is to help me through and teach me the things I do not understand. BUT The thing I have been realizing recently is that some people were not meant to stay in our lives..forever. 

As I have become older I have had more and more of these people begin to leave my life. I didn't understand what was happening at first. How could someone that means so much to me, just leave? Some of them went far, far away to college, many went on LDS missions, and the rest found the love of their dreams and got engaged and married. Through all these things I tried desperately to keep in touch. I clung to them with all I had because I could sense them slowly fading away from being such a huge part of my life. I just didn't get it. 

Now I do.

We know these people are placed in our lives by no happenstance. They are meant to help, heal & comfort. To laugh and love with us. To be there for us. To teach us, and learn from us. But what we do not know is that from the moment we meet them, our time with them is running out. Life is face-paced and hectic and certainty not always fair. People will come and people will go and whether or not someone was in your life for 3 weeks or 3 decades it doesn't change the fact that there will probably come a point that we just have to let go. It doesn't mean your souls won't always be connected, because once that happens there is no going back. It just means we take what we learned from these remarkable hearts and we move on into the next chapter of our lives. It's never easy to do this. Not one bit, but if we come to accept this reality it allows us to grow. and that's what life is all about: growth. 

So for now I will keep collecting my seashells and setting some down at different parts of the beach as I walk along, hoping that they can touch someone else's life, just as they have mine. 

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LID