I’ve been thinking lately about how much of growing up is really just learning how to deal with people. Not necessarily understanding them, because I’m not sure I’ve gotten particularly good at that, but learning when to let people in, when to take a step back, when to speak up, and when to stop trying so hard to make something work.
When you’re younger, you don’t really think about these things in such deliberate terms. You meet people, you become friends, you fall in love, you work with people, you get close to some and drift away from others. You assume that if you care enough, communicate enough, understand enough, things will eventually make sense. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.
I think I spent a good amount of my younger years giving people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe more than they deserved, although I didn’t know that at the time. Someone would do something that didn’t sit quite right with me and I’d find a reason for it. Maybe they were having a bad day. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe they didn’t mean it that way. Maybe there was something going on that I didn’t know about. Maybe things would be different eventually.
And sometimes, of course, those explanations were true. People have bad days. People make mistakes. People are complicated. I make mistakes too, so I don’t think I’ve ever expected perfection from anyone. The problem, I eventually realized, was that I could keep finding explanations long after the behavior itself had become the explanation.
There is a difference between giving someone grace and constantly making excuses for them. I didn’t always know where that line was.
Maybe part of it was that I really wanted certain relationships to work. I wanted to believe that people were good. I wanted to believe that misunderstandings could be talked through and that if two people cared enough, they could figure things out. I still believe in some of that. I just don’t believe in it quite as blindly anymore.
Because eventually, you start noticing patterns.
You notice how you feel after talking to someone. You notice that you are always second-guessing yourself around them. You notice that you keep explaining things away. You notice that you are becoming quieter, more careful, more accommodating. You notice that you are spending more time trying to understand someone else’s behavior than asking yourself whether you actually like the way you are being treated.
Those things are harder to dismiss.
I used to think that there had to be a big enough reason to walk away from something. Someone had to do something terrible. There had to be some obvious betrayal or some final incident that made the decision easy. Otherwise, wouldn’t leaving be unfair?
I don’t think that anymore.
Sometimes something just doesn’t feel good anymore. Sometimes a relationship has changed. Sometimes you have changed. Sometimes you realize that you don’t like who you are becoming in a particular situation. None of that necessarily makes the other person a bad person. And it doesn’t necessarily make you a particularly enlightened person either. Sometimes it just means that something isn’t working for you.
I’ve become much more interested in that distinction.
I don’t think I’ve suddenly become someone who has perfect boundaries or always knows when to walk away. I still overthink things. I still wonder if I’m being unreasonable sometimes. I still have moments when I probably give people more chances than I should. I’m not writing this from some particularly wise place where I’ve figured it all out. If anything, I’m writing it because I’m still figuring it out.
One thing I’ve had to unlearn is the idea that keeping the peace is always a good thing.
For a long time, I thought being understanding was almost always the better choice. If I could let something go, I would. If I could avoid an argument, I would. If I could adjust a little, maybe the situation would become easier. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that. Sometimes being flexible is just part of being in a relationship with other human beings.
But there comes a point when you realize that you have been keeping the peace everywhere except inside yourself.
You say yes when you want to say no because saying no might disappoint someone. You stay quiet because explaining how you feel seems like too much work. You accept an apology because you don’t want to hold a grudge, even though a part of you is still waiting to see if anything actually changes. You tell yourself that something isn’t worth making an issue out of, and then you wonder later why you feel so unsettled.
I’ve done all of those things.
And I don’t think that makes me especially kind. Sometimes I was just uncomfortable with confrontation. Sometimes I didn’t know what I wanted. Sometimes I wanted to be liked. Sometimes I wanted something to work badly enough that I was willing to make myself smaller to keep it going.
I think that’s a much less flattering explanation, but probably a more honest one.
There is also something about getting older that makes you less interested in proving things. I don’t mean that I don’t care anymore. I do. Probably too much, sometimes. But I’m less interested now in convincing someone that I am right or that my feelings are valid.
Maybe that’s what protecting your peace has come to mean for me.
Not cutting everyone off. Not becoming cold. Not assuming that everyone is going to hurt me. Just being a little less willing to argue with my own instincts.
If something feels wrong, I want to at least pay attention to that feeling before immediately talking myself out of it.
That’s probably one of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in myself. I’m learning that I don’t always need a courtroom case before I can make a decision about my own life. I don’t need to prove that someone is a bad person before deciding that I don’t want them close to me. I don’t need to collect evidence and present it to a jury.
Sometimes I can just say, quietly, this isn’t good for me.
And leave it there.
That doesn’t mean I always do it. I wish I could say I did. I don’t. There are still things I hold on to longer than I should. There are still people I miss even when I know distance was the better choice. There are still situations I replay in my head and wonder whether I could have handled them differently.
I suppose that’s another thing I’ve learned: knowing something is right for you doesn’t necessarily make it easy.
You can know you need distance from someone and still miss them. You can forgive someone and still not want them back in your life. You can care about someone and still know that you function better without them around. You can even wish someone well and prefer that they remain very far away from you.
I’ve found that strangely comforting.
Because I used to think that if I was really over something, I wouldn’t feel anything about it anymore. No sadness, no anger, no curiosity, no occasional wondering about what could have been. But maybe that’s not how it works. Maybe sometimes you can make the right decision and still have feelings about it.
Maybe peace doesn’t always feel peaceful at first.
And I don’t think the answer is to become harder.
That would probably be the easiest thing to do after you’ve been disappointed enough. You can decide that people aren’t worth trusting. You can stop getting attached. You can become very good at keeping everyone at a safe distance. There is a certain comfort in that. If nobody gets close, nobody gets the chance to hurt you.
But nobody gets close.
And I don’t think I want that either.
I don’t want other people’s behavior to decide the kind of person I become. If someone treated me badly, I don’t want that experience to turn into a belief that everyone will. If someone disappointed me, I don’t want to make disappointment my default expectation. And if someone couldn’t appreciate a certain part of me, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to remove that part.
I’d rather become more discerning than more cynical.
There is a difference.
I can still be kind without saying yes to everything. I can still care about people without making their problems mine. I can forgive someone without giving them the same access to me. I can trust someone while still paying attention. I can love someone and still know when I need to leave.
None of this feels particularly profound when I write it down. In fact, it sounds like the sort of thing people have been saying about boundaries and self-respect forever.
But maybe most things we eventually learn are like that. They sound obvious until you have to live them.
I’ve also been thinking about the versions of myself who didn’t know these things yet.
It’s easy, in hindsight, to look at an old decision and wonder what I was thinking. Why did I stay? Why didn’t I say something? Why did I let that happen? Why did I care so much about what that person thought? Why didn’t I just walk away?
I don’t always have a good answer.
Sometimes the answer is that I didn’t know how.
Sometimes I was lonely. Sometimes I was hopeful. Sometimes I was scared of losing someone. Sometimes I simply didn’t know myself well enough to recognize that something wasn’t right.
I don’t particularly want to romanticize those experiences and say I’m grateful for everything that happened because it made me stronger. I’m not sure I am grateful for all of it. Some things were simply painful. Some things I would have preferred not to experience at all.
But I can acknowledge that I learned something from them without pretending that the hurt was necessary.
Maybe that’s enough.
I’m still learning what it means to be on my own side.
Not in the dramatic, inspirational sense of the phrase. More in the ordinary, everyday sense. Listening to myself a little more. Taking my own discomfort seriously. Saying no without writing a three-page explanation in my head first. Letting myself change my mind. Leaving some things unresolved. Accepting that not everyone will understand me.
And perhaps most importantly, becoming a little less interested in being understood by everyone.
There is a strange freedom in realizing that someone can misunderstand you and you can survive it.
Someone can think you’re too sensitive. Someone can think you’re distant. Someone can think you’re difficult. Someone can think you should have stayed. Someone can disagree with a decision you’ve made about your own life.
They can think whatever they want.
I’m slowly realizing that I don’t have to correct every version of me that exists in someone else’s mind.
Maybe that’s part of protecting your peace too.
Not controlling what people think. Not making sure everyone leaves a conversation happy with you. Not constantly checking whether you’ve been a good enough friend, partner, daughter, colleague, or person.
Just knowing yourself well enough to live with your own decisions.
I’m still not very good at all of this. I still have moments when I question myself. I still care what people think, even when I’d rather not. I still sometimes choose the easier conversation over the honest one. And I’m sure there will be situations in the future where I get it wrong again.
But perhaps that’s okay.
Maybe protecting your peace isn’t something you master. Maybe it’s something you keep noticing.
You notice when you’re tired. You notice when you’re pretending. You notice when you’re saying yes out of guilt. You notice when you’re holding on because you’re afraid of what happens when you let go. You notice when being around someone makes you feel unlike yourself.
And then, hopefully, you listen a little sooner than you used to.
I don’t want to become someone who feels less just because feeling deeply can be inconvenient. I don’t want to become indifferent just because caring can be exhausting. And I don’t want to build such a high wall around myself that nothing bad can get in, but nothing good can either.
I’d rather stay open, just with a little more awareness.
Maybe that’s what growing up has looked like for me so far. Not becoming someone who knows exactly when to stay and when to leave, or someone who never gets hurt anymore. Just becoming a little more familiar with myself. A little more willing to listen when something doesn’t feel right. A little less willing to abandon my own feelings just to keep someone else comfortable.
I don’t think I have this figured out.
I probably never will.
But these days, when something doesn’t feel right, I’m trying not to immediately convince myself that I’m wrong.
Sometimes I just sit with it.
And see where it takes me.