It's weird that way.

Life has a funny way of distracting you. 

Somewhere in the middle of classes and parties and graveyard shifts and road trips you forget about the way things were and the people you used to know. 

And then you drive down a street or listen to a song and it all comes rushing back--everything is right in front of you...except it's not. 

It's in Paris, or Canada, or Detroit, or South Africa, or Taiwan, or maybe even stuck somewhere a few years ago and you can't get it back except that moment right there where you remember it and the reality of the memory hurts because it's so real. 

They say change is good and experience is the best teacher, but when the people that know you best disappear, you forget little parts of yourself. 

You forget that you love laying on the trampoline and talking under the stars while you dry off after a pool party. 

You forget that courtesy cones at Arctic Circle are made to be eaten at midnight in footie pajamas. 

You forget what the actors' voices in Miracle sound like because they've forever been replaced with the voice of your best friend, and you realize his commentary wasn't part of the movie even though it's what you loved best. 

You forget what it's like to jump in cars and race to beat curfew, memorizing the turns and hills between houses. 

And as you realize you've started to forget the words to the songs you blasted at those pool parties and on those Artic Circle trips and drives home, you realize that you miss them. The people who've known you since before it mattered what you wore and how you did your hair. The ones that know your least favorite flavor of jelly beans and how much you love to hate Cher. 

You miss them--even years in the future and hundreds of miles away, 

you miss them.