"You've changed." And then he said nothing more.
I felt my insides squirm. Words fell out of my mouth the way they would naturally, almost instinctually.
"How? What's changed?"
Silence.
What do you do when somebody you care about says that? When you know by the way they pronounced the two words wasn't a positive accusation? When you can hear their disappointment?
I pulled the lit cigarette away from my pursed lips. I held my phone and its unresponsive line with cold fingers and felt an even colder wave of emotion wash over me.
Everybody changed. And everything: the weather, your sisters taste in music when she turned 13, your uncles newly forgotten drug addiction, fashion and style, hair length, wrinkles- those are just listing a few things we cannot help, that are inevitable.
People fall in and out of love. They make the decision to quit their job and move away. They decide things that can change their lives or the lives surrounding them forever.
So, have I changed?
Yes.
With the winter air and the forgotten leaves and the dead trees. With the year coming to an end. With my hair getting longer and darker.
The list I could write of things changing besides myself is infinite, and my list of personal changes is identical in that way. And that too, always changes. The list is like that board in airports that is always shifting- airlines, destinations, and times. It's almost mesmerizing. Change is beautiful in that way.
I decided to not be upset and to take it as it was- real.
Because he, too, had changed. And I didn't like it either.
