Friendships Like Seasons

People arrive in my life like passing seasons—full of color, promise, and warmth—only to fade into a quiet, inevitable winter. I learn the rhythm of their laughter, the shape of their presence, just as the wind begins to carry them elsewhere nobody knows. It is as if I am a shore and they are the tide. I memorize the beat of their voice, the curve of their smile, only to watch them dissolve into the ocean.