Tonight I had the sudden urge to send a message to an old friend. Someone who had once been a dear friend, someone I probably loved, reached out a few months back to wish me a happy birthday. I don’t think of him often, but when I do, the thoughts are gentle and fond. I thought today, I’ll wish him a happy new year. When I did via our most recently used social media channel, I saw that the last messages we sent (4 in total, 2 from each of us) were sent for the prior birthday. Well over a year ago. And that had been a reply to a message from 10 years ago.

As I wrote my quick message, instead of the bland and easy “Hope all is well,” instead my fingers typed out: “Time is like cotton candy.” I saw the words on the page and chuckled. I really had just let whatever turn up on the page that was bound to without thinking about it at all.

And then I saw the cotton candy hank being pulled from the main spool. How the strands pull and thin as they break free, some more towards my hand, some remaining with the source. As they pulled, the translucency through the pink, spun sugar grew until it was just light between the two. So soft, so delicate, and suddenly, split apart. I conjured the feeling of barely touching the fluff to my wet tongue and feeling it begin to dissolve.

That’s the beauty of its disappearing act. The tragic demise is to hold your sweet floss proudly sat atop your paper cone when it begins to drizzle. Or if you’re at the pool and the splash catches you unaware. Water in even the barest mist is its mortal enemy.

Cotton candy time. The connective tissue of relationships beyond arm’s reach. We tear holes through that time, or splash it and let it dissolve. Maybe we take a taste now and then and recall how we love the flavor, but then we drop the cone without ever finishing.