(non)stop-motion

It's interesting to see how people change over time, how those we once knew so well become so different that we look at them and wonder: is that you? Sometimes they look the same - it's when we start talking to them that we notice the changes, the great distance that lies between who they were and who they are. Sometimes the changes are physical as well, but regardless of the impact they might leave on our eyes, it is nothing compared to the lasting impression that shapes itself on our minds. We bring back the memories of our days together, and realise they would be utterly impossible in the present - they have changed, we have changed, everything around us has changed... I know it's normal, life is not meant to stand still for everyone, and even when we feel that our motion has stopped and that we're as stagnant as a mire, it's not quite so. It always goes on moving. It's just that sometimes we cannot understand the motion, the changes, the differences, and worse - sometimes, after the initial shock, we realise that we don't really care about them. People change, and those whom we found so close to us once become distant, like strangers we're meeting for the first time, like strangers whose faces remind us of someone we've lost a long time ago, but who aren't they any more. They have ceased to be, and the person we're seeing now cannot bring them back. We promise to see each other again soon, to have a cup of coffee, maybe to go out, and as we walk away we know that we won't, that there's no point to it, no point at all. Things change. Even the stop-motion has moved on.