The older we become, we find ourselves noticing that the time it takes to be energized again is longer than it used to be before. When we know that we have a limited number of good hours during the day, would you sacrifice three hours of it for a person who hasn’t even bothered to check up on how you’re doing? It’s alright not to take part in everything. It’s alright not to affect your mood by others.
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The “One-Way Street” Relationships
This is a harsh truth to come to terms with. You find yourself looking back on a relationship and thinking, “if I stopped being the person making plans, taking care of transportation, and reaching out, this relationship would simply fizzle out.”
Our reluctance to abandon such relationships has much to do with the history behind it. “But we have been best friends since the 70s.” However, the past should not dictate our current choices. If you find yourself having invested a lot more into your relationship than your friend, you must question the reasons behind it.
Healthy friendships don’t need to be perfectly balanced every day, but eventually there must be a give-and-take aspect to it.
The Family Trap
Family is by far the most difficult element of this entire puzzle. There are so many “shoulds” around family: I should call. I should visit. I should suffer through poor treatment because, after all, they’re “family.”
Here’s some tough love, however: Respect doesn’t offer any family discounts. If your sister or cousin disrespects your thoughts, belittles you, or disregards your boundaries, it’s even more painful than if she were a stranger. It doesn’t matter how similar you may look or sound; if your family is making you miserable, it doesn’t matter if you have the same surname.
You aren’t obligated to excommunicate family members, but there’s nothing wrong with redefining your terms of service. You can decide not to discuss politics, religion, or other subjects; you can set boundaries that limit the amount of time you spend with family. Taking care of yourself around your relatives is not “betraying” your family—it’s growing up.
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The Ghost of the Person You Once Were
There are certain people who have a fascination with the “old” you. They are interested in discussing the failures that occurred in your thirties or what you used to be like before you got wiser. This keeps you firmly rooted in something that you left behind long ago.
It is nice to look back sometimes but it is also draining being around a person who cannot see beyond what you used to be like. You have grown. You are different in many ways, having become softer in some respects and harder in others. How can you enjoy today when the people around you keep reminding you of your past?
The people who are worth having around are those who are interested in the person you currently are and not who you once were decades ago.
The “Crowded Loneliness”
Then, we have the lonely relationship – the one you have absolutely nothing in common with anymore. Here, you simply sit there, surrounded by a thick silence because you know you have absolutely nothing more to say to each other.
There’s a particular kind of loneliness that occurs when you find yourself around the wrong kind of people; it is lonelier even than solitude. The reason why so many do not want to leave such empty relationships is due to the fear of a “void,” but the void is almost always better than the illusion of an “us.”
