No one warns you about that part of growing up. Everyone talks about bills and responsibilities and taxes, but no one prepares you for that aching, quiet moment when you look around and realize… everyone changed. Everything changed.
The kid you used to ride bikes with until the streetlights came on? The one who swore you'd be friends forever, who knew your secrets and favorite snacks and the exact rhythm of your laugh? You barely recognize them now. They're busy, distant, or just... gone. Maybe they moved. Maybe they got married. Maybe they just stopped reaching out. And you keep trying to tell yourself that's normal, that's life—but deep down, it stings. It burns.
And it's not just them. It’s your parents. Your siblings. Your old teachers. Even your hometown feels unfamiliar now. Smaller. Sadder. Like someone picked it up and shook all the meaning out of it while you weren’t looking.
you start to wonder if the people you remember were ever really real... or just fragments of who they were in that tiny little window where you all existed in the same bubble of innocence, before life got messy and complicated and lonely. And then you ask the worst question of all: did you change too? Did someone else feel this way about you?
No going back. Just a vague ache in your chest every time you pass a playground or hear a song that played at some long-forgotten birthday party, and suddenly you're mourning people who are still alive but no longer the versions you loved.

That’s the heartbreak no one talks about: watching people grow into strangers.

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