This past week we took a cruise around the Western Caribean through Carnival cruise lines.  This is our second cruise in the past 6 months.  They are so relaxing and other than the elderly who don’t understand lines or how to eat in public it is one of the best, most relaxing vacations we have ever taken (with kids).  

Our kids adore Camp Carnival and it gives the wife and I time to ourselves which is usually spent eating, seeing a show or just sitting in silence happy to not hear singing or yelling.  This past week my daughter met a friend about halfway through the week, a little girl named Avery about a year or so older than her.  My daughter told us all about her friend and based on what she said about her new friend you would have thought they knew each other for years.  When we were leaving we ran into Avery and her parents and my daughter while too shy to give a hug in front of her parents simply said, “bye, I’ll never see you again”

This statement was so true but yet not anything I had ever said to anyone.  It seems so permanent and I would rather say bye or pretend to stay in touch when it isn’t a realistic goal… Or at least that is what we think.  

This experience reminds me of a cruise I took my Freshman year of high school with my parents.  I met a group of friends and at the time I even thought I had met the love of my life, a girl named Meagan from Alabama.  In most cases my daughter’s farewell would have been appropriate especially considering the lack of ways to communicate back then vs. what we have today in email and social media.  

However, I took a different approach we wrote letters almost monthly for the next 4 or 5 years.  Ironically, we ended up at the same college in Alabama but my depression, unhappiness with myself, uncertainty with who I was and resulting shyness forced me to essentially desolve the friendship.  In reality though I never said to her “bye, I’ll never see you again” technically I can’t remember my last words…  Probably something like peace out or geah.  

It’s funny how things happen and how many people come in and out of our lives and we never think about the last time we see those people or the last time we will talk.  As I grow older I realize how fleeting this time is.  I hope to those that I consider friends I can truly say until we see each again, to those that I have already lost know that in this moment you are in my thoughts once again and while we may never see each other… you will always have a friend in me.  

Stay Awesome.