A simpler time; a time when life didn't move at this frenetic pace, when love meant something, and what you owned was worth less than who you came home to. When people measured their wealth by the number of people in their lives that truly loved them and who they loved in return.

When life wasn't about what someone wore or where they lived. When family and friends mattered, and a person's pain: meant something other than someone else's entertainment. Technology and social media were supposed to bring us closer together, to help us identify and understand that we are not alone, but somehow it has become twisted, skewed into a show of how many materialistic items one person can accumulate and how much abuse another can take. We watch and wait for them to slip, to fall, as confirmation of their humanity. To make us feel better about our own imperfections as human beings.

And in the end? When all is said and done, will it matter? What possessions you owned, what car you drove, how many people pretended to care. Does any of this madness mean anything other than that we once breathed? I don't think it does. I think all that matters is that we were happy and that we were loved. That there were people, not things, surrounding us when times were dark, and that somehow, we always managed to find our way back when we were lost.

**Contents and Sample Pages**