...Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset...

I received an email from an old friend I've known since I was thirteen years old. His news was, unsurprisingly, "I'm married." This is to be expected. After all, he's a twenty-two-year-old returned missionary, back for just over a year. Still, it was almost unnerving. This is the fourth friend around my own age who has recently tied that particular eternal knot. And why not? We're all adults now, right?

But, yesterday...we weren't.

Growing is painful. Not like those scrapes we got falling off our bikes when Daddy let go of the seat behind us. Not like the water up your nose when you learned how to dive. This sort of pain is...deeper. It's the sort of pain you experience as you close the casket, or when you have a terrible argument and you're sure your relationship will never be the same again; and it isn't.

Not that marriage in itself is painful. On the contrary, I consider it the most sacred, important event of one's life. But...I guess the prospect of change frightens me. Who isn't frightened by it, at least a little?

I guess I just remember too well the joy of yesterday. Those days of tangled, half-done braids, no makeup, holey pants, stained shirts--totally indifferent to my appearance. The running through hundred-acre corn fields, climbing trees, scampering over rooftops, drawing without caring how badly it turns out. What changed?

Swiftly flow the years...

We grew up. Opinions started to matter; paths diverged. Change.

I'm not bitter. In fact, I am grateful to be where I am now. I wouldn't want to go back to all the troubles youth entails, but, still...I always remember my childhood in the sunlight. I guess that's how memories are--honey sprinkled with a grain or two of salt. Today is never as good.

I wonder if that can't be changed, though. Why does yesterday always have to seem better? Why do we have to let those opinions start to matter? Certainly we don't want to run around with tangled braids and holey pants, but...we don't have to like that movie just 'because it's popular' or bleach our hair because it's 'in style'. We don't have to change who we are. What we like.

I guess that is what I fear. Unnecessary change. Things like marriage, graduation, moving away; they don't have to change the ways things are. Friendships can still be whole. I believe what strains a relationship is when people aren't themselves, and then one day they wake up and realize that, and decide to change.

If we start out as ourselves, we have little to fear. It won't fix everything. It's not always, or even often, the answer. But, still. It may make today better than all our yesterdays were.