In chemistry, a transition state is a highly unstable intermediate in a reaction.  Because it is so unstable, it only exists for a fleeting moment (if at all) and cannot be observed by any traditional means.  The reaction will either “take”, and new products will be formed, or the transition state will devolve back to the reactants.  On an energy diagram, the transition state is located at the point of maximum energy:

(It’s been some months since I took orgo, so I may be a little rusty in my chemistry, but you get the general idea.)

Anyway, in more colloquial usage, transition simply means movement or passage from one state or position to another.  In many situations, though, I feel like transitioning from one position to another involves something much like a transition state, where you still have bonds to your old position but are forming new ones.  However, people are not chemical species, and this transition state can last a long time.

I recently lost a good friend of mine due to divergent morals and pathways.  The ways that we chose to take simply weren’t compatible.  And this has happened more and more as I have grown older.  Some of the people I was good friends with freshman year have since found different groups to hang out with.  Almost all of my middle and high school friends have stayed in Arizona, so it’s become more difficult to keep up with them.  But the worst thing of all, the very worst feeling, is when I meet someone that I really like, but due to various reasons, I have to let them go.

This is hard because feelings for someone don’t just end overnight.  Even though I understand that our friendship is now over, I can’t stop myself from hoping that some way, somehow, they’ll find their way back to me and everything will be just like it used to be.  I found a poem I wrote five years ago, about one of my very first such lost friendships:

Sitting frozen in time

my heart trapped behind such a screen