Reading the past

I came across a blog post from someone I knew years ago. The post itself is about two years old at this point and I stumbled across it accidentally.

I won't link it or anything. Despite it technically being public, it feels like a violation of privacy.

It brought a few things into perspective for me. The passage of time being the first, and the density of life being the second. They talk about work and relationships, which is to be expected. However the thing that really stuck with me is their experience with having kids. It feels surreal seeing this person I knew when they were just and awkward teen talking about their first child. It made me wonder if the absolute paradigm shift that supposedly comes with having kids is overblown. I know that having a child changes your life, I know that is simply the truth, but maybe it's not the cataclysmic event everyone makes it out to be.

I don't mean to say it's a bad thing, and I certainly was dead set on having children long before I read this, but this reassures me that I can have kids, and not lose myself. I can still be me and not let parenthood swallow me entirely. In fact, I think it ay be very beneficial if I don't allow it to become my personality. I think my future children will benefit greatly from me being me.

There was a part in there that I will not name explicitly, but I will say that it made me sad. Despite being a small portion of the post, it felt like it held a disproportionate weight. It spoke of a loss that was felt despite not technically losing anything. The loss of opportunity. It's something that I know all too well, and in the context of the subject it was a very acute loss. They didn't expand on it, but I got the sense that it was something that deeply affected them, even if they didn't put many words to that effect. Having known them for a short, but formative time, I got the sense that it was something that they would feel the need to mention, but perhaps hurt too much to go into detail about.

I wish I could have been there for them. I wish I could be there for all the people I once called friends. I wish I could have kept the circle of friends I had and made sure they were all doing ok. It saddens me that there are people I lost touch with that could be living a miserable existence. It makes me wonder if I could have done something. If I could have helped them out. I know it doesn't matter now, and that the past is past, but I get this deep sense of failure when I think about all the friends I could have helped. All the people who could be doing better if not for losing touch with me. I know that sounds kind of self-centered. Here I am assuming that knowing me and being near me is some kind of universal good, but that's really not how I meant it. I know how much it hurts to have nobody to lean on. Even an imperfect rest is better than nothing. Even if I only helped a tiny amount, it would be better than nothing. 

I guess that's the moral of the story here. Help where you can. It's better to try and be a good influence, than to just forget people entirely.