Age 17 to 18 ,

A lot of things changed , didn't they?. We  changed , our hearts changed and who we were changed.     
    
        Earlier we didn't even think twice before calling someone our close friend , but now proximity makes ourselves more cautious.
      
         Our hearts used to be open gardens with flowers of compassion blooming around , now they are closed treasure chests with gems locked away. Our faces used to be open and bright, looking forward to what each new day brought to us , but now we closely guard our emotions with smiles that don't really reach our eyes.
           
         We didn't think twice before quarrelling with friends and pointing there mistakes out , now we are forever scared of offending someone and losing them permanently .  Our childishness used to make each other laugh , now we try hard to be  mature and understanding. 

           We have lost the  ability  to understand in the process of "trying to understand".Our voices used  to freely cheer each other up and now our hushed voices point at each others flaws . If our love for each other could be described as a colour then  it would be bright vibrant and untainted vividly painted red , now it's mixture of red and splotches of grey . Somehow between promising each other never to change , we all did , subtly, slowly but drastically.
            
                  Mostly our love changed , we used to love people with open hearts and  now we "pretend " to love with closed hearts. Time  has changed us a lot , it changed us , our emotions and our feelings . They say time heals and smoothens rough edges . What they never mention is that a lot is lost in the process of polishing. All because we wanted some people to love us back , we entrusted our hearts to them and just as everyone said they turned out to be bad caretakers.
            
         I think we changed the most when we were rejected , rejected from our closest ones , we realised that anger didn't really hurt,unkindness did. Selflessly loving people ironically taught us to be selfish.       
        
                We slowly grasped at the idea of being adults , forgetting the vows made to never grow up , we did. Despite promising to be different , we grew up to be  the same as adults . Life is full of lessons , but we never knew they could come in form of people , failures taught us to fake triumph and we as a generation rejoiced , seating ourselves on thrones of lies and bad friendships we reveled.  Love was abandoned as "old school" . Life is full of oxymorons and slowly I have started to understand how precious it is to be a child , oblivious to pain and impermeable to sadness floating in a bubble of innocence
     
             But along with these , we also found true love and friendship. Losing our closest friends taught us how strong we were from within and just how many storms the sturdy sail of our life could withstand.
       
             Despite all the rocky mountains we crossed  in the path of our life , we also found people  beside us who never demanded anything in return. We found people who became like pillars in our life ,  we also found some who chipped away the walls of our hearts. Some moments where we forgot all our enimosities and grief and lives the moment at its fullest . The more loves we lost , the more we learned to love ourselves  , a tiny bit at a time. Change doesn't only embitter but it also mellows. We found that life isn't a bed of roses but more like lone roses blooming at the interval of days and sometimes months . But what we all learned was to hustle , to never give up and learn how to solve problems . We learned to shut out the uneccessary noise and find the music within our souls