As the World Turns.

"Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different."

C.S. Lewis.

When I was a child, my mother would watch The Young & the Restless, and even at five, I was tuned into whatever it was the Victor and Nicki were up to. (Those daytime 'Naps' they took together made total sense at the time, as I too often took daytime naps. With friends.)

And, even if we didn't watch for a day, week, month, decades, Victor and Nicki's lives continued on that show, in that world.

Actually, from what I can tell from the cover of Soap Digest or whatever its called, at the market - Victor and Nicki are still on the air, now almost thirty years later.

Though they may not still be Young, they sure do still seem to be quite Restless.

So, with the advent of social networking - the facebooks, the instagrams, and yes, the blogs, we can now tune into the lives of those we actually know, as anonymously as if we were watching them from the safety of the television set. 

And just like those soaps that we tune in and out of, those lives continue on even when we're not watching. 

It is so easy to forget that Life goes on and the World continues to turn even when we aren't tuned in. 

With as many life changes as I've had in the last several years, I have moved from many different worlds - the World of the Ex & His Family, to Patio World with Beauty and Goldi et. all, from Boutique to Corporate Retailer, from Friending and Unfriending.
So many slow changes, scene changes, costume changes.

When I broke up with the Ex, I unfriended most everyone from that world; his childhood friends and adulthood friends, his family that was to be my family, and anyone else even remotely associated with Him and with them. 

I wanted to disappear, and to become anonymous. 

Untrackable. 

And, more importantly, I didn't want to watch their lives go on without me. 

It hurt to much to know how replaceable someone's girlfriend was, even when she was around for years and years. It hurt to know that no one would really miss me, especially after becoming such a nuisance in the wake of the break up.

Like on any Soap Opera, someone can be written out with ease, and perhaps they're mentioned in passing every once and while, but really - once someone is gone, moved or out of the picture - they don't matter anymore.

No one from His World is going, 'Remember her? Those were great years for all of us.' (Probably because they weren't, but regardless.) Friendships long lost aren't wistfully thinking, 'Remember the good ol' days that were so much better with her in the picture?' 

As things change, they become just the ways things are - without us even realizing it.

Change doesn't ever 'Hit' us the way we expect it to. 

Our day to day movements simply evolve, and become the Way of our World. 

So, when I inadvertantly (or advertently, lets be honest) come across one of the unfriended in a newsfeed somewhere, and they're newly engaged or five months pregnant, or really, anything different from the last time I saw them, from the last time they knew me, it shakes me a little. 

Just as my life has changed, so have theirs. 

And even though I wouldn't rather be anywhere else, I get nostalgic for the friendships or relationships that are changing so much even without me being there. Yes, I understand how narcissitic this is, but it's the truth. It makes me sad to be unfriended with people who at some point in my life I loved or cared about, even if it was just because they grew up next door to an old boyfriend of mine. 

It makes me sad that from my remote veiwing area in Orange County, I am so disconnected from people I once celebrated life's big changes with. 

Granted, it makes me happy that I have the people in my life I do now, and that those big changes in our lives are and will be celebrated together; but, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness when I come across someone with whom I was once close and now am not, and they have changed. 

Just like I have, I realize. 

And I wonder if they ever do miss me. If they ever reminisce about thistime or thattime, or if really they only think of me when I inadvertently pop up on their newsfeed too.

I wonder if when they see me, they think to themselves that I look older; and the implication of what that means about their own aging.

You know, I have three years in between me and the Ex now?  

I have just about a year or so in between my little beach town life. 

Jim and I will be celebrating our one year anniversary in just about two weeks, and I've been at my 'new' job for a year already.

And for every five minutes, ten minutes I spend doing something, it's easy to forget that everyone else out there is out there too, minute by minute.

Changing, living, aging.
It catches me by surprise sometimes.

Their worlds keep turning too.

Just as your own does.

Just as mine is.

I wouldn't change my world for anything, but sometimes I definitely feel the loss that comes along with moving on.
Of growing up and of change.