Understanding the Circle Game as people move on and life goes on

Seems like every other day I wave goodbye to folks that I will never meet again. Some I've known intimately and others only as colleagues at work. Some I'd known from years and just like that - in a wave, a brief hug, a shake of hand. Two different lives separated apart forever, never to cross paths again. Two lives that ever crossed paths only by a vague incidence of chance.

And we are largely pinned, captive, beneath the absolute irreversibility of time.

You really need to do some growing up before Joni Mitchell's "A Circle Game" can bring a tear to your eye.

And the seasons they go 'round and 'round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return we can only look behind 

From where we came 

And go round and round and roundIn the circle game

(Week #278/300.)