The color of the sky that day was undecidedly blue; tentatively gray one minute, blue the next, but still bland and lacking of real color, real emotion. The dog inside, a complete antithesis of the sky’s description. While small in size, the animal’s eyes are filled with wonder and awe, a constant reminder of the love and adoration she harbors for her humans. Facing away from the door with her back towards the scene outside, she tilts her head up, licks her chops, and focuses on the person standing in front of her, taking her photo. She wipes any remnants of the savory treat from her mouth as she sits patiently for the photo, waiting for another opportunity to taste the delicacy known as “peanut butter.”

Remembering this moment makes me understand that friendships change. Memories last, but the people in them come and go as they please, their past self different from their current one, their present self a reflection of the person they were in the moment of that memory, and hopefully they are better for it. Remembering this moment makes me understand that friendships change, but strong ones, alliances forged over the furnace of years old companionship, do not suddenly end. They revolve, like a circular door, moving as time changes, expanding and narrowing as new people come through and enter our lives. The doors may bring new people, new places, new things, new memories, but they are still doors. They still brought your memories though their entrances, still remembering you passing through, no matter how long or not long that passage lasted. They are still doors, and you may still pass through them, if only you try hard enough to make that passage, the one which you are so familiar with, it seems almost a part of you. It is a part of you, a door into yourself. If that passage is so familiar and easy to cross, why not go through the doors again?

While people change, memories don’t, they are ingrained into our brains forever, meant to be a reminder of the times we shared and the moments we explored.

I can still smell the grease painted across the freshly made French fries, feel my hair blowing lightly in the breeze, can still see a table with my friends sitting around. My chair is empty, inviting me to sit, covered in a towel, which protects me from the imprints the weaved chair makes on my skin when I sit for too long. I can hear the chatter of my friends around me, taste the bitterness of the lemons in the drink that pierces my tongue, calmed by the sugar-water mixture that mixes in the lemonade. I can feel myself laughing at the jokes being made, perpetually living forever in that living moment, coming back to it every year, every summer. Picking up my place as though I never left, still sitting in that chair that digs into my legs and leaves marks, still laughing, still drinking lemonade and eating French fries, still living in that moment, still feeling my hair getting tossed lightly in the whipping breeze, still living in that moment, as it continues in my mind.

I can’t believe that I actually thought that my family was just watching a TV show. Now I know that every time we sit down to watch the hit Apple comedy series, we are transported into the screen. Our minds shift to London, our bodies travel to AFC Richmond, and our hearts are moved with the words said by the characters onscreen. We sympathize and feel with them, making our own role in the show from the comfort of our couch in the family room. We watch as the characters face challenges all too familiar to us, while also jumping hurdles we never thought possible. 

I was wearing a ridiculously designed hat covered in flowers, fit specifically for a head of my size. A dog hat. A hat made for, yes you heard that right, a dog. When it was insisted that a photo was taken, I looked in the other direction, avoiding eye contact with the camera, and the ridiculous human who fit this contraption onto my head. I’m perched on top of a rock, my collar hangs from around my neck, holding a leash that attaches me to the human taking the photo. Maybe if I sit still long enough, I'll get a treat?

Nobody knew that I could drive while holding a sippy cup. Regardless of having both hands full and being no older that 1½, I would find a way to operate the plastic contraption I was placed in, most likely by garbling orders to my mother or father pushing me. Telling them when to change directions, but on the turn signal that the toy car didn’t have, flash the nonexistent lights and so on. It might’ve been a play car, but I was in the driver’s seat, I was in charge, and I knew I looked good doing it.