so i’ve been in philly for about a month now, and i figured it would be a good time to take a minute to pause and reflect and kind of get out what has been in my brain since i got here.

as you may know, over the past few months or so i’ve spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) about people and who we really are versus how we present ourselves or how others perceive us to be.

it’s interesting when you ask someone about change. a lot of people hate change; many people say that other people can’t change – some with a bitterness to their tone, others with a sense longing for something different or something better in their voice.

i’ve come to realize that all we do is change. anytime i think i have it all figured out, or even a small piece of the puzzle finally set in place, i realize just as quickly that i don’t. life is fascinating. more than that, it’s unpredictable.

i think that it’s important to embrace change because it’s going to happen whether you want it to or not.

and yet as beautiful as it can be, i’ve come to realize a casualty of change is that how you think of someone else changes, too.

how someone exists in your head is not always who they are in real life.

it’s funny how you can see someone in that picture-perfect golden hour light and in a flash, it can completely shape-shift into something else without warning. you build them up in your mind, focusing on their best habits, their character, and the little things they do when they think no one is watching. but as i’ve said before, people are mosaics, kaleidoscopes. and it’s only a matter of time before the coin flips and you see a different side of them – a side that you maybe didn’t see coming, or a side that you hoped would never reveal itself.

maybe you’ll see that someone isn’t so kind to you, how their game of cat and mouse is exactly that to them – a game. or how someone might only want you when it’s convenient for them, when they can get something out of your time together. or for some, maybe it’s “just business.”

perhaps more concretely, maybe one day you’ll look up and see someone cross the street so they don’t have to cross your path.

for better or for worse (or just plain weird), i tend to use the analogy of an iceberg to make sense of a lot of things in life. maybe it’s because i watched too many documentaries about the titanic as a kid, but i can’t help but think that when we walk down a busy city street, we’re passing icebergs. we see the surface level – how someone’s dressed, how they’re walking, the energy they give off – but there’s a lot we don’t see. and even with those closest to us, there’s a lot we will never know.. the secrets we keep, the motivations behind our actions, the fears underneath it all.

i think it’s really easy to become jaded, especially during this technology-led era. it’s so easy to become hardened to people and to life itself based on what you see, hear, and come across on any given day.

but the cliché is true: you never know what someone else is dealing with, or what demons they’re fighting behind closed doors.

therefore, you cannot take it personally when someone does something that does not reflect the vision in your head. because you don’t know what’s going through their head at the moment, either.

it’s almost instinctual to become disappointed when you realize that someone isn’t exactly the way you’ve perceived them to be in your mind or to become disenchanted once you come to the conclusion that, for better or worse and like a lot of other things in life, human connection is fleeting. the bond you share with someone at one point is not going to stay the same forever. sometimes it gets better. sometimes it gets worse, and sometimes it completely disappears.

no matter how tight you hold onto it, how much you cherish it, it will change.

the way in which someone exists to you may only live inside your head.

sometimes, who someone is to you is not what you are to them.

but no matter what, don’t let it harden you or make you cold.

realizing that someone doesn’t match the vision in your head may be haunting and heartbreaking, but it’s hopeful, too.

because it’s all a kaleidoscope. and with one flick of a wrist, the entire picture you paint in your head can change once again.