I decided to go through my yearbook yesterday. And as I was turning the pages, smiling at the memories, and thinking about the people, I realized something significant. My thoughts towards my old classmates as I looked at their pictures - they were all, for the first time, in the past tense.

She was awesome, I wish I had gotten to know her better.

He was kind of an abrasive douchebag.

Then I realized, without even thinking of it, that I would probably never see most of these people again; and certainly not be in their lives as intimately as we were when school was in session.

Then I thought about how we all leave numbers in yearbooks, with that ubiquitous line - "Call me this summer!" But hardly anyone ever calls. It is an unspoken code that most of the relationships we formed in high school evaporate the second we walk away from that place, diploma in hand. But you know what, we really shouldn't take that as a bad thing. It should be seen in the way the older folks always tell us - along the lines of that old cliché that graduating high school isn't the end, but the beginning.

But then my realizations broadened. This is just one example how people, in all areas of life, are too reluctant to let go. Even when their refusal to move on is hurting them. Even when they know it. I've seen this happen countless times to people I love, and I've seen it happen to me. I've seen it turn people mad - driven to tears of anger and eventually into a tragic spectacle of self-pity. I've seen it nearly destroy people.

But even worse than that, I've seen it slowly eat away at people. This refusal to let go and move on, it eats away at us like a cancer. We try and act as if things don't bother us; as if, by some stretch of the imagination, we have moved on. But the slow decay is always there. And the only cure lies in our minds, that is, if we are only willing to take it.

I am talking to you, who have been in love for three whole years; in love with a girl that, for many reasons that you cannot accept, will not ever feel the same way about you. And I have seen it cause you to do terrible things; I've seen you self destruct time and time again, only to end up, after a ridiculous string of good luck which delivered you from harsher trouble, right back where you started.

I am talking to you too, who seemingly cannot get over any man you have had close in your life. I have seen you become so intimately attached - if not to the physical being than to the idea of your closeness with them, to the point of codependent fanaticism. And I've seen it three times - the third from a first person perspective.

I am also talking to you; you who have seemingly lost your very own dignity in your reluctance to move on. You know it was the right thing to do, after he cheated on you. You know that more hurt is going to come eventually, and you know you deserve better. But you chose to forget and forgive, either for sake of familiarity and reluctance to move on or for some self-crafted reasons completely unknown to me.

Most of all, I am talking to you, man in the mirror. You who have fallen so deeply into an illogical love, that you now only love for love's sake. You have forgotten the true nature of your love; forgotten what drew you to him in the first place. And now you are trapped, unable to love anyone else in the quite same way, try as you might. You mourn your wasted love, but it is no one's fault but your own.


One step forward and two steps back. It is the only choreography we have learned in this life. If we continue down this path, logic truly will break our hearts forever.