The People That Made Us

They say that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I kind of believe in the mindset that nothing is really ultimately up to chance, and the people that flit in and out of our lives due so with a purpose, even if it is a harsh lesson to be learned or a relationship that needs to be grieved in order to initiate growth. I am a strong believer in loving relationships, and not always the romantic kind. I have unbreakable platonic bonds with the members of my gym whom, to me, don’t require any shared blood to be considered family. There are some friendships I have established that mean more to me than people not part of such a healthy environment in their dojo probably can’t understand, and unfortunately, certain circumstances take people in various different directions in their lives, and sometimes that means people leave and move and depart to other areas of the world. It never gets any easier, but it is important to remember to be grateful for the time and memories shared.

When people come into your life for a reason, it may only be brief and very temporary. Sometimes these people are not even a chapter in the storybook of your life, but a few sentences on a single page that could be integral to developing the main character’s story arc. Hopefully it is not the reason for your villain origin story, but hey, you never know. At other times, these people may be perfect strangers, but one small and minute decision that either you made or they made ended up permanently altering the course of your future; aka the butterfly effect. What may have been barely a blip in someone else’s radar, may have been an entire colossal impact on yours. In fact, I can’t recall the name of the first person to ever say my muscles made me look manly, but it initiated my entire BDE movement and helped cultivate the persona and confidence I now execute on a daily basis. So thanks, stranger.

Then there are our seasonal people. Those who stick around for several profound chapters in our life, whether it be weeks, months, or years, but have played a pivotal role in the recall of our memories. These are the types of people you can reminisce having strong friendships with in your childhood, the close coworkers you have invited to several important life events, the members of your gym that you spend free time with etc. Even though these aren’t as temporary in the aforementioned paragraph, they are still vital in being there for a reason. I believe we learn from all of our relationships, and it’s unfortunate that sometimes these can be debilitating or grieving lessons. However, this is all a part of life and something that everyone has inevitably encountered at some point. Although some of these people have left a dark mark on our souls since the destruction of said relationship, there is no doubt that they have impacted us in one way or another.

Finally, there are the types of people that are part of us for a lifetime. Even if they are no longer physically present in the living world, they have left such a huge impact on our minds and in our hearts that we carry them with us for our remaining years on this earth. These are the type of people we craze to encounter in our lives, and the type of people we fondly remember for eternity; the ones we love the most. These are the people that because of them, our lives have meaning and have been that much better just by their mere existence. These are the people you consider family, no matter what DNA is indicative of. Tell these people every day how much you care for them and how much you love them, because one day, we won’t have that luxury to divulge any more. To all those in my life whom this applies, I can’t thank you enough for being a part of it.

If we reflect on our past, present, and future, we are all who we are because of the people that have come into our lives and impacted us with our experiences. Whether these are unimportant people, or those closest to us, something they said or did is why we behave, feel, and act the way that we do. Sure, some of these people definitely sucked, and if they were on fire right in front of us, we wouldn’t even piss on them to extinguish the flames. But some of these people we would take a bullet for without even the slightest of hesitations. Humans are humans because of the bonds and relationships we build, disintegrate, sever, repair, terminate, and cultivate. Our emotions tie us to these people and it is my hope that we all get lucky enough in life to have a wide selection of people who fall into that last category of relationships. Damn, I’m really going to miss you Josh.