You never know what you've got till it's gone

This summer I kept a detailed journal from graduation day until mid August. I love looking back at old diaries and figuring out what my life was like at a certain point in time. As I was looking through I realized that I had a very interesting relationship with a friend. Let me share with you one of the entries.

• 06/19/10 – Saturday: After a long night of tossing and turning on the tent floor,(I was camping with some friends at the time) I wake up and pack up to leave. After I’m packed up I eat breakfast and head out to go rafting. When we start out rafting I am sharing a boat with Zac (my little brother). For the first four hours we float down the river having fun and Zac and I have a blast. We stop for lunch and Zac, Daniel and I play in the water. It was great. We loaded back up and stopped after an hour or so to try to find petro glyphs. We failed, but it was a nice little river walk. Then Daniel tells Zac he wants to switch boats with him so that he can spend more time with me. It’s cute. Daniel and I take off down the river. We have many adventures over the next six hours including getting lost, having the boat get a hole in it, swimming down the river, getting scraped up and bruised from the rocks in the river, and just goofing off together. By the end I am so tired and cold and hurt. (I got a really bad burn on my leg that I had to take intense medicine for for a couple of weeks afterwards. Almost a year later I have three scars from that day) Daniel says nice stuff about me being cute and pretty. When we FINALLY get out of the river we pile into the mini-van so we can shuttle us back to the two cars. Daniel, Zac and I are squished in the back. My hip is bruised so it hurts so badly. Daniel puts his arm around me and tells me it will be ok. The pain gets worse so I lean into his bare chest and he kisses my head. I turn away to the window to ease the pain and he rubs my back. We ride the long way home and after apologizing for not sitting in the back with me he gives me a hug, kisses my head, and says that he loves me. We get back to mount and I drive home. He texts me good night and says that he loves me.

Honestly, it wasn't until I read that and other entries like it from the summer that I realized just how close I was with him. I mean I was obviously crushing as you can tell from the twist on this entry but I never realized how special our relationship was, even if neither of us really meant for it to be. And now to the title of this post; "You never know what you've got till it's gone" Daniel and I are still close friends but our relationship is VERY different than it was during this blog post. And I never realized how special it really was until well, it's gone. But I know that when God closes one door he opens another. God used a special time in my life to open me up to people and to show me important things about myself. While I loved that time in my life and miss it with all my heart, if that's not what God has for me than that is not what God has for me. The fact is that God has something great in store for me and I just get to wait to find out about it. But I do miss one of the best times of my life. You never fully know what you had until it's gone.