People are mirrors: they each reflect you differently, and depending on the mirror, you might not like what you see. In essence, you are the company you keep.
I let go of an old friend recently. The reasons were hard to explain, hard to convey without any admissible charges or crimes. In truth, this friend never did anything consciously hurtful or cruel. She was a good person and a good friend to me.
Her only crime was reflecting everything I hated about myself.
Some people meet you or see you at your most vulnerable... your weakest, most pathetic, formative state. Sometimes that vulnerability brings you closer together... and sometimes it puts you on your defensive for the rest of your days.
No matter what they say, you know who you were when you met. And no matter how far you climb, they will always remember your secrets, growing pains and failures.
Such a dynamic can leave you constantly trying to work against the image of who you used to be. Trying to prove to them, or rather to yourself, that these fatal flaws are no longer yours.
But you don't have to prove who you are. The only proof you need is the life you lead. So if you find yourself appealing to the Jury of the past, the only exoneration is to kill and bury the person you used to be. Forever.
Perhaps that sounds disturbing or even rash. But some of us survive by shedding our skins, and it's hard to relinquish an old identity when loose ends keep pulling you back to the places you wish to forget. My life used to be defined by what I could not have. But not anymore. I grew. I changed. I survived.
Every stupid, scared, insecure, fragile, rejected, anxious thing that defined me -- I put a bullet through all of it.
I am not that person anymore. He's dead and buried.
And I am free.
