It’s crazy how naive you are when you are young. How small the world seems. How significant and mighty you feel in comparison. You view time as expendable, with a subconscious assumption that it bends for you— almost as if it slows and quickens to meet your needs. If you’re lucky, you are given enough of it to glean a more realistic understanding of the concept through years of maturity and experience. Others are hit with the weight of time like a freight train. A tragic, life-altering event shocks them into the truth of time’s dispassionate nature and the vastness of our helplessness in the matter.

May 14 is the anniversary of time turning my world upside down.

When I was 15, I met my first “real” boyfriend. Although we went to different schools, we dated our sophomore year through most of our senior year of high school. We were together constantly. I remember driving to school one day when I thought, there is no way I could ever not love him. I seriously can picture exactly where I was at the very moment this thought crossed my mind. I really believed we would always be as happy as we were right then.

Time, however, brings change. Once I became a senior, I began recognizing all of the things I was missing out on and how much fun my friends seemed to be having. Hearing constant stories about the awesome parties I had never attended, the sleepovers, the football games.. I felt left out. With my boyfriend at a different school, I had been unmotivated to attend my own school events and became detached from most of my friends. I started fearing that I had missed out on my whole “high school experience.” It was then that I began to feel as though he was weighing me down.

I broke up with him. I decided to spend a while being young and free because “we had plenty of time” to have a relationship later in life. I became so wrapped up in myself, having fun with my friends, and getting new attention from other guys that I completely lost sight of who I was and what he meant to me. He was absolutely devastated. On one particular night, I remember him crying.. and I felt nothing. I felt numb to it all. I think that’s one thing I will never be able to understand or forgive myself for. How do you excuse yourself for knowing someone is hurting because of you and not being able to feel anything? The regret and hatred I feel for myself grows stronger every single time that memory creeps back in.

It took about two years of “having fun” and us dating other people for me to finally realize I had made a huge mistake. I reached out to him, and we began talking regularly and hanging out again.

Some days, it was like no time had passed between us. Some days, I could tell it just wasn’t the same. He still had feelings for me, but we had both just changed. I worried it was probably too late for me to repair things. He fought so hard for me before, it’s my turn to be the one fighting, I thought.

I remember the excitement I felt on my 20th birthday like it was yesterday. Before walking out the door to head to a party that night, I told my parents I had officially decided that I was determined to fix things between us, no matter how much time it would take (as if it were in my control.) “I’m going to marry him,” I said. I still believe that I whole-heartedly meant that.

The party went nothing like I had anticipated. He was being distant. I got upset. We said mean things. We argued. I cried. We decided we shouldn’t talk for a while so that we could take time to think about things.

I was so hurt and disappointed. I kept wanting to text him, but I felt confused. Rejected. Ashamed. Plus, I didn’t want to seem weak by being the first to apologize. I decided to just give it some time. Never did I imagine that I was actually giving up time.. the only time we had left.

Seven days. Seven days after the last time we spoke. Seven days after seeing him for the last time. Seven days after assuming we had the time to give away. Seven days after my 20th birthday, I was completely eviscerated by TIME.

I received a call on the night of May 13 that Chris had been in a wreck and life-flighted to an intense trauma unit. I threw up. I screamed. I tried to leave for the hospital until my mom convinced me she would take me first thing in the morning. I stayed up all night. As soon as I began dozing off around 6am, my phone vibrated. I picked it up and saw he was calling me. I don’t think I could’ve ever prepared myself for how much that call would change my life. Instead of his voice on the other end, I heard his mom saying that he didn’t make it.

The hurt I would endure for days, months, years was unfathomable to me at the time. I was utterly heartbroken for his parents, and I was void of any emotion other than guilt, pain, and disbelief. Memories of what I put him through years earlier slammed into me, leaving me breathless. The shrill reminder of our last words.. the arguing.. the decision that we would “give it some time”.. the time I wasted.. the time we will never get back.. I searched my mind for anything to make it better, but I was completely helpless. I couldn’t make this better. I couldn’t fix it. Time had betrayed me.

I have learned the hard way that time belongs to no one. Time stops for no one. Time slows for no one. Time is guaranteed to no one. I constantly overestimated the compassion that time had for me. I took too much time to say I was sorry and now I’ll never get to.

It took years of self-destruction after the accident for me to learn any of the critical lessons that came from that day. I have grown so much as a person as a result of my hardships and experiences over the past 10 years, but I have so much left to learn.. like why so many undeserving people, like Chris’s parents, are left to go through horrible tragedies. I don’t know why bad things happen or why people are taken from us so suddenly.

I don’t claim to be an omniscient narrator in the story of life, by any means, but I do know about time. I know how precious it can be; I know that some people long for more of it; I know that you shouldn’t anticipate how much of it you have left; and I know that you can’t get it back when it’s gone.

Please cherish every second you have with those you hold dear. Apologize. Communicate your feelings. Be compassionate. Build people up. Don’t waste your minutes being angry or proud. We need to live every second as if it’s our last, because we truly never know when it will be.

It has been 10 years today since he died and I still think of him, still dream of him, still remember his love for soy sauce on everything, his smell, the sound of his Jeep pulling up in my driveway. I can picture his silent laugh where his whole body shakes, his hair gel routine, his fake smile for pictures. I can still hear his voice and this dorky dance move he did. I will miss him forever and ever, and my hurt is only one millionth of what his parents feel. I can only imagine the never-ending pain they live with on a daily basis. Please pray for them. I love you, Jerry and Sabrina. I am thinking of you today and everyday. RIP CRB. May 14, 2009.