Yesterday is gone forever; there may never be a tomorrow; and today never truly is if we don’t create memories inside of its few hours.

How often do we waste time worrying about what will be instead of what is now?

How many times do we miss the joy of the journey, stepping over memories we might have made had we stopped to enjoy the simple moments.

Consumed by tomorrow, we often fail to live today.

Today we wake up, worrying about next week.

Tomorrow we go to sleep, thinking about next year.

Soon we’ll wake up and realize that it’s all over. We can never relive those days, never redo those relationships and never retrieve that lost time — the extra phone call or effort to get together with a friend; the strength we didn’t have to be honest about our struggles, our dreams, our heartaches and loves; that time we should’ve taken off our plastic mask to share our soul with someone we feared would be disapproving.

We often exchange our pride for inauthentic relationships.

We cover up our moral failings and, in doing so, forfeit the true essence of being real, of being human.

Moreover, the judgments we slap on others actually keep us from sharing the journey of life or intimately knowing another’s heart.

We befriend people who meet our needs in some way.

We’re generous, expecting a reward, and we think we have the right to repay evil to those who have stung us.

We do unto others as they do unto us.

Even more depressing, if our relationships operate on an “I did this for you, and I expect this in return,” circular pattern, then we don’t truly love that person. Real love is giving until it hurts and then some; it’s forgiving where it’s not deserved and sacrificing our self-interest for another, even to the point of humiliation.

I think before we can truly love anyone, we must reach a moment of utter depravity and humiliation, in which we fully realize the potential we harbor to reach any level of destruction or pain.

Once we realize how horrible we are, then we can begin to see others as better than ourselves, and that’s when love becomes real. Our hearts will go out to those people trapped in a reality that could easily have been ours.

When I think about the friends I’ve truly loved, I remember them most affectionately in the spontaneous times we had, the embarrassing confessions and the hours we spent divulging our vulnerable hearts.

There are times I will never live again and people I’ll never see again.

But in my memory, they live in the phrases, the funny comments, the inside jokes and the famous expressions they coined.

If only I could just see them one more time — but, in some cases, I probably never will.

And the friends that I have now, soon they’ll move on, and I might never see them again either.

Or not very often, anyway. We will still write, but those days will be gone forever.

There will never be another moment like that one, and it makes me realize that if I don’t make the memories now, I never will.

Casting myself back into some of the coolest hours of my life, I remember the zany and entertaining, the time the lights went out so we all sat around in the dark and played this stupid movie-title-name-game; that time we went to the pool hall and danced around with our cues while everyone stared at us like we were crazy; that time we went to the beach at night and ran around in the water like idiots, giving each other piggyback rides and kicking sand on our jeans.

I remember the time we played sand volleyball right before sunset; the way we drove around with the windows down, singing to disco and letting the wind ruffle our hair; and walking home at night, under the moonlit, tropical trees with fruit bats casting their large, swooping shadows on the dark street and sidewalks.

I remember renting all of those “chick flicks” and watching them snuggled together with chocolate and gummies; sitting beside the inlets of water, divulging our secret heartaches, dreams and longings; running down the steps with synchronized feet; and singing to God under the stars, while the fish jumped from the water, splashing in their ripples.

I remember pushing each other around in a shopping cart in the middle of a grocery store parking lot; singing dramatically on the edge of the fountain; and videotaping crazy stunts.

The days go by, and if you aren’t laughing, crying or smiling with someone, then you will never have them to remember fondly.

Don’t miss the coolest hours, and don’t miss forming those genuine relationships.

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April Goodwin is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.