[Brainstorm] take me away from the norm

I was having the discussion, which later manifested into a heated debate, with my mother over the question of whether or not people change. She believes through her mildly bleak and extremely adult disposition that people do not change, they simply bend in a given situation to benefit themselves and acquire their needs above others. I, on the other hand, dove deeper into the realm of my consciousness and understanding of humanity (yes, here we go), and believe that people are constantly changing. Thanks to my in-depth studies on the Persistence Through Time theories and the research that I conducted, I am a firm believer that people do change.
Simple. Fact. People change, not all at once, no. But there are small subtleties, small shifts that over time, someone becomes a completely different person. You won't realize it all at once. You won't even realize that you are changing. One day, you will just wake up and see the shift that life has made. And one day, maybe, you will begin to see the tiny little shifts that happen daily, that follow us around. That change not only shifts the people around us, but the world as a whole. Everything is in constant motion (the river is everywhere right?), and it is literally impossible to stay the same, for more than a millisecond.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. It's life, people need to change. To start over, fresh, to adjust to any given situation. Biologically, we are changing all the time. Our bodies are constantly changing and moving. Cells die and regenerate, hairs fall out and grow, nails break and grow, and our skin changes darkens or lightens. Blood escapes and recreates, and our eyes move and moisten. Nobody is the very same person from one day to the next, from one second to the next. If I made a decision today, and was asked the same tomorrow, I may choose differently. I learn, and I adjust.
So with all of this given evidence that people are changing constantly, why does it hurt so bad when we wake up one day and realize that the person we love has changed, or worse yet, that we ourselves have.
I began writing in a journal again, and in hopes for inspiration, I dug through my bookshelves to find my old journal. I actually wrote in one for an entire year, filling it up, I call it Vol. 1 now, since I found inspiration to begin a second. Anyway, sorry for the digression, but I began reading Vol. 1. It was astounding noticing the differences between myself then, and myself now. I was a romantic then, I believed that love conquered all, and that love was ultimately enough. Well, in light of the events that happened last year, that theory was shot to shit and I am now a relationship-phobe who hates all things that remotely resemble feelings. I have mastered the fine art of pushing things away, so it only seems fitting that I can push images and feelings so far back into my subconscious, that even my brain will physically not allow me to retrieve these thoughts. But looking back on this past Alicia, I miss her. I miss the relationships that I had then, not only with him, but with others as well. I miss the connection. However, a part of me still believes that Domino saying, "At that moment, I promised myself that I would never invest too much emotion into one thing. It's always a set up to the pain of losing them."
Anyway, the other night I went to Sara's boyfriend, Tony's house. I met some people, and although I had just met them that night, everyone just seemed to fit. The weather was nice, the bugs weren't biting, and sitting altogether outside under the light of the citronella candles, I made human connection, and everything was all right in the world.