Time changes everything, as the author has come to understand. When running into an old friend from high school at the pharmacy, the author felt awkward, unable to find the right words. Driving home, the author pondered what circumstances caused them to lose touch. In reality, no specific event was to blame - time changes circumstances, feelings, attitudes, and people. The author used to fear these changes but now realizes one must embrace change rather than fear it, as it can bring more happiness than imagined.

1. “Time Changes Everything”
A Cliché Understood Alas
--Mecca Howe
Growing up I had always heard the saying “time changes everything” or “time changes things”,
but I never paid any attention to the infamous quote, as was my independent attitude toward
most other clichés. However, now that I am older, I believe I am starting to understand the
legitimacy of the three words through various circumstances I have found myself in.
Today for example, I found myself in a vaguely awkward situation as I ran into an old friend at
the local pharmacy, whom I had been extremely close to during high school and some of my
first years of college. Yet there in the middle of the main aisle somehow I found myself in a
moronic state, not able to find the appropriate words to say to a girl I once spent almost every
day with. After quickly exiting that setting, the whole drive home to my south side apartment I
pondered what circumstances had happened in our lives that made us lose touch.
In reality, there was no specific circumstantial culprit to blame at all. I truly acknowledged alas,
after 23 years of exploring this place, that time really does change things. It
changescircumstances, feelings and attitudes, it changes residence, it heals pain and blurs the
past, it causes new wounds and creates new objectives, it brings life and also takes it away, but
most importantly I’ve learned that time changes people.
I used to be so fearful of these changes. I believed I could prosper my life behind stone barriers,
in which each choice and path was chosen by me and only me. All while also believing this
theory would diminish any hurt that life’s changes could bring. Now that I am less naïve and I
believe it is safe to say more mature, I have realized that one must embrace change rather than
fear it. If you accept time’s changes and utilize its advantageous, you will soon learn, as I have,
that it can bring more happiness than you ever imagined your journey would endure.