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(or do you let people go when their time is done?)
The other night, I came across a text from an old friend I haven’t spoken to in a really long time. One of those short little messages—“just saying hi.” The kind of text that feels too casual to really matter, until it’s the last one. In fact it was so casual, I didn’t even realize I still had it saved on my phone. Once I noticed it, I just stared for a second, wondering how we went from talking every single day to nothing at all. No big fight. No falling out. Just the quiet unraveling of life, taking us in completely different directions.
Some people are really good at keeping in touch. They send birthday texts, remember your dog’s name, follow up on things you casually mentioned six months ago. They keep group chats alive like it’s their job. I admire those people…mostly because, I’m not always one of them (though I do try).
I’ve also come to realize that there are two distinct types of people—the hang-on-ers and the let-go-ers. (very technical terms here, obviously, haha.) The hang-on-ers feel deeply responsible for every connection. They carry entire decades of friendships in their back pockets and feel a pang of guilt when someone fades away. The let-go-ers see friendship more like seasons—some short, some long, but all still meaningful in their time. They have no problem letting people move along.
I used to be a hang-on-er in my younger years. I kept every number, every email address. I’d scroll through old messages like flipping through a yearbook. But somewhere along the way, life shifted. Or, like I’ve said before in my other posts, maybe I did. I got more comfortable with the idea that not everyone’s meant to make the full journey with me (this fact used to make me so uncomfortable—I wanted to keep all my people). But the reality is, some people just come into our lives for a chapter, not the whole book. But that doesn’t make their chapter any less beautiful. And that’s what important to remember.
Several of my closest friendships ended, not with a huge bang, but a soft fade. We just stopped…calling. I got busy. They got busy. We never fought, and never really talked about it. It just ended. And yet, I still think about them all the time (most days, actually). I hope they still think about me too. Maybe friendship is just like that sometimes—quietly living on in the background, even if you’re no longer part of each other’s daily lives. I kinda like that idea…
And then there are the special ones, the ones who do stay. The lifers, I like to call them. The ones who show up through the weird middle parts of life, don’t get scared away by distance or changes. The ones who know exactly what you mean when you say, “it feels like one of those weeks.” I don’t take those friends lightly. In fact, those are the ones worth holding on to.
So tell me—are you someone who keeps in touch with old friends, even if it’s just once a year? Or do you believe in releasing people when their season is over? And is it ever really over? Now, that’s the question.
P.S. I still haven’t deleted that text
