Not All Who Wander Are Lost, Just... Different

In the last few months, I have realized an important truth. When someone in your life is gone, we have this way of freezing them in time. For instance, my cousin will perpetually be 9 years old in my eyes. For some reason, every time I see him I am surprised that he is a teenager still. And I think of the way I thought and the things I did when I was his age and realize I don't know how to treat him anymore. When I was 16 years old, I preferred to be thought of as an adult. After all, I was responsible and thought about issues most adults do. What I am trying to say is that when you lose contact with someone, you freeze them in your mind. They stay the same weight, height, have the same traits. But if you see them again later down the line, you realize that this was a collection of your memories, not a picture of the person they are now. So we, are inevitably shocked by the things they do or say or even how they look. For some reason, we never think about how they'd change, or grow. Or in some cases become someone you wouldn't recognize.
This has gotten me to think. Does this happen, these same changes, while your in that person's life? Do you carry on, never noticing the change because you still want them to be who they were. Or is it because of us that they don't change. Perhaps they are hiding this whole other person underneath the whole time. And it bursts out when they are gone. I guess we'll never know, but either way we don't miss the person that exists today. We miss the person that we imagine they are. And that person will never exist, no matter how much we want them back. Everything is different, and there is no turning back. The only solace we have is to think fondly of that person, as they were. And survive on that.