Sometimes I catch myself remembering people who once shared a season of my life. Friends from school, companions from travels, the teammates who shared bus rides, and decades of kickoffs with me. We were close for a time. We talked for hours, we experienced unique things together, we felt connected in a way that was real and alive.

And then, gradually, life moved on.

I like to look back on those seasons fondly. Because no one comes into our life by chance; each meeting has its cause, and each separation has its effect. What we shared belonged to that moment. It had its reason. And when that reason completed itself, the current carried us elsewhere.

Some people stay for decades. Some for years. Some only briefly. Even the deepest relationships eventually change form. Time reshapes everything that belongs to form.

Even when your paths diverge, what you shared doesn’t vanish. It lives on in who you became together. On the surface you go your separate ways; underneath, you’re still shaped by the same life you touched.

So there is nothing to regret.

You remember the moments with countless other souls. The ways your paths touched. The flickers of time you shared. And you let them be beautiful exactly as they were. Not wishing them longer, not wishing them different.