It's always hard when people go in and out of your life. I think life is to short to allow that to happen for those you really care about.

I like the imagery of loosing the 7 point anchor. It harkens back to your idea of not being totally complete because of your losses (Seven being a important Hebrew number for complete).

One thing I know for certain is that you can never make everyone happy. It's like physics. Every action invokes and equally opposite reaction.

Good job in comparing loosing friends as a handful of sand! It's truth!

Yes, after reading this, it further affirms my portraying of God in my Melissa stories. I just think that it's so fitting. I'd be happy enough to know some people good enough to decently lose them. With people in my life it's more like, drift in, drift out, like the waves. No real loss, just drift in, drift out. I'd like to go drifting in the ocean sometime, or be lost in the cosmos, ah well, before I turn and write a five page paper (Hey, I figure if you wanted to hear soemthing like that, you'd just email me or something, so I won't annoy you with it otherwise.) I just wish I knew more people more closely, so I wouldn't feel like a stranger everywhere I go. Some people will always be strangers and some people are stranger still.

Nice night,

S.P.