The five year anniversary of my current job came and went while I was in Ohio. The company gives its employees a Montblanc Meisterstück pen on their fifth anniversary and a handwritten card from the founder. It was a nice gift and the card has some really nice things written about me. It’s a great company to work for. In all actuality, of all the companies I have worked for, this is by far the best one.

This also means we’ve been living in southern Florida for five years as well. The more we are here, the more it feels like we are supposed to be here. When we go to Ohio, it doesn’t feel at all like home; rather some place that we used to live long ago—like an old apartment and with about that much sentimentality attached to it.

People grow up, people grow old and people grow apart. Long absences can bring to light qualities that people possess that might have otherwise gone unnoticed had you been around them non-stop for long periods of time—the nice become mean, beautiful becomes ugly, happy becomes sad—it’s not a great realization to have, but it is a realization nonetheless.

When you miss something, you usually miss it the way it was, not the way that it is. You can’t get it back and it will never be that way again.