Changes... scare me. I hate them, they give me a feeling of nervousness tumbling in my stomach. I'd stop looking forward to the next day, dreading it in fact, and long for a routine, something I'm used to.

That's why I expect my friends to stay the same. I know people change, but I know I'll change along with them. But if they suddenly change to abruptly... I can't keep up. I'll feel like I've been left behind in the dust, running so desperately after them, yet they never slow down and only continue surging forward. I hate that feeling.

One friend told me that changes will definitely come. She told me that she'll change for sure.

Then, I asked myself, how does she still expect me to continue being her friend if she changes? To me, friends are two puzzle pieces. They fit perfectly together. If one day, a puzzle loses an edge, they won't fit together anymore. There will be that one hole that will forever remain there, no matter how small it is.

Aren't her words ridiculous?

I was angry. I felt that she wanted me to change with her. And I can't do that. I won't change myself to accommodate other people, because that's just not me. I'm incapable of doing that, and I'm sorry if that's what people expect of me. I live for me, not for others.

I'm afraid of changes, and I know I'm not the only one. The feeling of unfamiliarity, it's suffocating. The feeling of being thrown into the future, unprepared, it's frightening. That's why, I keep myself static. I try not to change, not only for myself, but also for my friends. I can't afford to change, because that takes too much effort, and I'm already much too tired. And at the same time, I want to be the home that my friends come back to.

Years later, they will all change. They may change to degrees where they don't even recognize each other anymore. We may have ended each others' sentences once in our life, but years later, that chemistry will have vanished. The small nods of understanding, the small hand gestures--they will all become distant memories, ones that will fade away.

My friends will become strangers. But I want to still be there for them, to offer the little familiarity that still exists in the world. Everything changes. Time passes. But I want to try... to just try to give them a feeling of home. So they can return back to me and know exactly what to say. So they can buy me a cup of coffee exactly the way I want it, without having to go through the trouble of finding out.

Because I know everyone wants a home. They want somewhere to return to after battling through the harsh realities of the outside world.