Change.

People grow and change, it’s just a simple, natural part of our lives. Whether we recognize it in ourselves or in others, change is always among us. Some change we see as good, some bad, some break our heart, others present us with life-changing moments. Change is in everything, it's found within nature, trends, objects, people, etc. It is the change in people that seems to affect us the most.One day you may meet a stranger who, suddenly or slowly, becomes one of the most important figures in your life. With this comes the opposite; you may have always been close with one person until one day, suddenly or slowly, they become strangers who have changed so much you can barely recognise them anymore. You, yourself, may have changed or changed someone’s life in both of these ways. Whether we notice or not, our changes impact someone, somewhere in some way. Like a chain reaction we don’t expect to hit us.The amount of people I have seen walk in and out of each other’s lives (including my own) feels endless. Sometimes it can feel heartbreaking but something good will always come out of it if you keep hope and faith in everything you are and all those around you. As you think about it now, you can look back at all the things that happened in your life, appreciate all the little things that occurred to help you get to where you are now, there will always be good changes and even some we have not realized had ever happened. Some see our paths as constantly changing with every decision we make, others believe our paths are set and all our decisions will lead to the same endpoint in some way or other. Either way, change is a vital part of our lives.With so much change happening, we begin to anticipate all the possibilities in which it will happen next. When we feel low, we wish for all the ways change will happen for good. When we’re at our happiest, we begin to fear all the ways change might reduce this. It constantly plays in our mind, if we want to think about it or not.We should not fear it, nor regret it rather, we should look forward to what it will bring, the new ways in which we will live because of it. How we, as individuals, become closer to finding ourselves every day.words by Hayley Cox and photo by Jessica DiMento