Time breaks the connections we make with such startling ease.

• The girl in elementary school who gave me a sand dollar she found on an Oregon beach (I still have the sand dollar, but its covered in dust)
• The boy who had a crush on me in 2nd grade
• A girl with blonde hair with whom I used to go horse riding
• My first ballet teacher, who I remember so vaguely
• Friends of my mother's and their children
• The neighbor kid I used to spend entire summers with, playing in our backyards
• My childhood best friend, who I still catch up with some summers, but don't really know anymore
• My best friend through middle school, we would stay up all night laughing and listening to music
• A friend who had a crush on me that I had to reject because her perception of me was completely different from who I was
• My group of friends from high school; we were so close and yet we never really knew each other
• My first crush whom I didn't realize I liked until it was too late
• My first girlfriend—she still appears in my dreams sometimes, shaped vaguely, like an opaque shadow
• Figure skater with long black hair
• Korean woman who taught me her kimchi recipe & how to make pajeon
• My boss at the tea shop/tea cafe I used to work at, and the woman who blended tea there—the tea blender was a very vivid character with a short grey hairstyle and black glasses
• One of my coworkers at that same tea place, who wore her hair up and whom I would share a cup of tea with during break
• One of the girls who I was in a ballet class with; she switched studios, & I've only seen her once again at the dance shop she works at
• My former ballet teacher, and the director of that studio. I miss them a lot and it's been less than a year
• A guy I knew so briefly and yet so vividly—I think he was starting to like me, which obviously wouldn't work..
• A girl who does sleep studies whom I gave relationship advice to