I used to exhaust myself trying to keep people close.
Explaining my feelings so they'd understand. Adjusting my tone so they wouldn't leave. Dimming parts of myself so I'd be easier to love. I thought that was what connection required.. constant maintenance, constant proof that I was worth staying for.
But the people who truly stay don't need any of that.
They don't need you to perform your value. They don't need weekly reassurance that you care. They don't keep score.
They just stay. Quietly. Consistently. In a way that doesn't ask you to shrink.
I've been noticing this more lately. The difference between people who choose you and people who tolerate you. Between people who meet you where you are and people who only show up when you meet them where they want you to be.
It's a painful distinction to make. But it's a necessary one.
Because once you stop pouring into connections that only flow one way, you realize how much energy you have for the ones that actually fill you up.
The right people don't need convincing. They don't need you to chase. They see you.. even in your quiet seasons.. and they stay anyway.
And I'm learning to trust that. To stop holding so tightly to what wants to leave, and to open my hands toward what chooses to remain.
That shift has changed everything.