sum of all the people we have ever met

We are the sum of all the people we have ever met.

There's no doubt this is true, although there are some people that I wish I have never met. The ones where you knew deep down that they did not deserve your time, but you remained hopeful anyway. The ones you want to quickly forget but you know will only linger in the back of your mind the next time you meet someone else. The failed ones that make you more cynical than you were to start with.

Each failed relationship is a tragedy of its own, but the ability to look back on a relationship and reflect fondly on how someone could shape your life and values is very telling. Not all the people we've met are worth remembering.

Getting over someone is a lot like unravelling a sweater. (Stay with me on this corny analogy. I blame skinny girl for inspiring this train of thought) How tightly knit it is will determine how easy it is to unravel. The relationships that hold little meaning will unravel with a simple tug, and the yarn will quickly straighten itself out to point where you never knew that it was ever part of anything. But, if the relationship was very tightly knit, and their lives were so intertwined that they wouldn't be as kind, good, brave, (and any other positive trait) as they are now without the other's influence, any unravelled yarn will still retain the original bends and loops. Don't take my word on this, as I'm no knitting genius, but it's probably easier to knit the sweater back together with the memory of those knitting patterns within the yarn itself.