We often think of memories as gentle things, sepia-toned moments neatly folded in the drawers of the mind. But sometimes, memories bite.

Dante said it best, “There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in misery.” It’s not the pain itself that aches the most, it’s the echo of joy that came before it. A laugh that once rang like music now sounds like mockery. A smile, once comfort, now a ghost.

Change is strange that way. It comes quietly at first maybe disguised as a missed call, a forgotten birthday, a difference in tone , until one day you realize that what was once familiar has become foreign. You stand at the edge of what used to be your world and it doesn’t recognize you anymore.

But here’s the truth no one likes to admit:

Change is not betrayal. Change is just change.

We tend to hold people to the last version of themselves we loved. We expect the friend who once understood every silence to always be that way. The lover who once reached out first to always stay. But people are rivers, not statues. They twist, split, dry up, flood and so do we.

Time doesn’t ask permission.

Even the deepest bonds, no matter how heartfelt, are still mortal. Some grow with us. Others don’t.

We grieve that and we call it loss.

But really, it’s just that life continues on without our consent.

And so, when we sit alone, aching for the echo of a laughter that no longer visits us, when we replay old conversations in our heads like a broken record, we must also remind ourselves: That version of you, the one who laughed in that moment, loved with that heart, believed in that future, still exists. And that matters.

It matters even if the people in that memory have walked away.

Even if you no longer recognize the one who smiled back in that old photo.

Because memory is not always there to heal. Sometimes it comes to teach.

And other times, simply to remind you:

You were happy. Once… And you will be again.

Later.

Jd