"...you never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth..."

Sometimes we leave.

We move to a new place, a new school, new friends, new family, new aspirations, new love, new us. But everywhere we go, we attach a little piece of ourselves. And when we leave, we leave that piece. Sometimes it's huge- a childhood home, the school you've been in for the past 9 years, a family you've lived with. Sometimes it's small- a bench you sat on, a tree you climbed often, a drink you used to like. Sometimes it's gradual- a blog you write on less and less.

Too often we don't know we've lost ourselves until we sit on that bench or climb that tree. Even more so, we slowly feel lost or empty and don't remember where we left the pieces. But there are times when we are too scared to go back- we are scared that we'll never get those pieces back, we are scared that things have changed and those old feelings will have disappeared. We are scared that it will hurt more to go back to those once-upon-a-time feelings than if we feel lost forever.

It isn't true, though.

We leave ignorance, innocence and youth behind every second. We will never get it back. What we have to remember is that things will never look or feel or be the same the second time around. Every moment is unique, even the bad ones. And if we spend our lives trying to get old moments back, we'll never have the moments we're living now.

So I can sit here and regret all the time I avoided my blog because I thought I wouldn't have enough time to write/I didn't have anything interesting enough to say/I was tired/I thought my blogger friends had left me. Or I can welcome myself back, dust off the old posts, put my fingers to the keyboard, and type.