It started as an agreement to have a quick check-in, but somehow three hours flew by — his afternoon and my early hours of the morning.
There was no agenda. Just exchanges — life updates, thoughts, reminiscing, views, insights. Familiar laughter from shared memories, reflections on the past, and conversations about who we still want to be. This is what more than two decades of friendship looks like.
When life brings you onto a different path, it’s easy to let go of the old while trying to move forward and adapt. Distance, different rhythms, different lives — they quietly reshape you. There are times you feel that you have changed, as if that version belongs somewhere else now.
But not completely.
The past — and the connections that come with it — shape who you are more than you realize. I thought I had become someone different. But a three-hour conversation reminded me of what I love doing, the things that once lit me up, and the parts of me that never really left.
I used to think I had left that enthusiasm behind — that I didn’t want it anymore. Instead, I was reminded of the things I still love. Building a new life or walking a different path doesn’t erase what has been ingrained in you for years. It is something you always carry inside.
Distance changes many things. But some connections anchor you. They ground you. They remind you that parts of you are still intact — still understood, still the same.
Living far from where you once called home often comes with an unspoken pressure to move on. To adapt fully. To belong here without looking back. But staying connected makes you feel whole - combining past and present, acknowledging the before and the now. It allows past and present to exist together, without needing to choose between them.
That call, I hope, is just the beginning of many.
No agenda. No pressure.
Just connections with someone who still knows you and stays.
-- Elle
