Dear friends, family, professors, coaches, and all others in my life currently,
Thank you for playing a part in my crazy life. Whether I see you every day or once in a great while, thank you for helping me evolve into the person I am and strive to be.
The sad thing though, is that not all of you will stay in my life forever. Not all of you will be at my wedding, not all of you will be there when I have my first child, and not all of you will be at my funeral when I die. And I may not be in your life forever.
The word sonder can be described as:
sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
In which case, each person you pass by has an incredible story they have and are living through. It is deep and different and unique. And you come across new people every day. The thing we tend to have a hard time comprehending is why things happen. Why do we lose people we love, or become distant with a friend that was like family at one point, and why do we hold on to them? Why do we find trust in someone and then suddenly feel nothing for them at all?
As human beings we are designed to use our emotions to feel. When we become comfortable with someone we latch onto that because we like the feeling it gives us. We also feel anger and sadness and can want to stray away from certain people. This concept happens to each and every one of us.
Something I think needs to be understood is that people may come and go out of your life. They may be there for a while or no more than a minute or two. You could meet them at a coffee shop or on a plane ride to Australia. The means and opportunities are endless. But we need to appreciate that. We need to envy the purpose of each being because they too are experiencing people coming in and out of their life. And each person has a path, so we must be confident in those people that their path will be as bright and exciting as we hope our own to be.
So when it comes to your high school boyfriend that broke up with you, or your football coach who left for a better team, or your husband you fell out of live with, embrace it. It is okay to not understand why people leave or why you change feelings about people. It is important to remember that life is a long game of finding yourself and your path, so when people leave your story to keep writing theirs, its not as bad as you might think. Everyone is helping everyone live their complex life by coming and going, and the people meant to be in your life forever, will be there as long as you strive to accept the idea of sonder, and admire each person in your life's purpose of being there.
