I was thinking about what you said about life being like disjointed segments of time strung together almost like random. I was thinking about how the people we encounter have definite impacts on us that we feel in the moment and even sometimes that we carry with us the rest of our lives although we typically don’t carry the connections to the people that changed us for very long. I have this vague image in my mind, maybe inspired by physics, of particles suspended in liquid bombarding each other and altering their separate courses of action. I’m wondering if we’re supposed to view the relationships we have with people as nothing more than just catalysts that for better or worse inspire change in ourselves.

I was looking through an album today of some photos taken seven years ago during a past relationship, and I was thinking that these are really nice photos. I was thinking that it was a shame that I didn’t feel anything while looking at them… not at thing, almost as if I were looking at some random stranger’s photos with no understanding of the context behind the imagery. Of course I remember everything, the dates, the events and what I was thinking, but none of it felt like my reality. Strangely, I felt like I wasn’t even looking at pictures of me. I can’t remember feeling so disconnected from myself, not to mention the other person in those photos.

I live with the effects people have had on me. It’s like I took something from them or they took something from me and now I’m different but still distinctly alone in how I’m different and completely disconnected from the cause of the change…