what are we willing to repair?

“cut them off.” “protect your peace.” “you don't owe anyone access to you.” scroll through social media for long enough and you'll find some version of these sentences everywhere. if someone doesn't respect your boundaries, leave. if a friendship drains you, walk away. if a family member keeps hurting you, distance yourself. if a relationship doesn't feel good anymore, end it. some of these messages have become so common that they barely need explaining anymore. they're part of the language we use when we talk about boundaries, self respect and mental health. you'll hear similar advice in therapy, in podcasts, in books and from people who genuinely want to help others get out of unhealthy relationships. and a lot of it makes sense. nobody should have to stay somewhere they are constantly disrespected. nobody owes unlimited access to people who repeatedly hurt them. but lately i've been wondering about the other side of that conversation. what happens when leaving becomes easier than repairing? when every difficult friendship becomes a toxic friendship, every argument becomes a red flag and every uncomfortable conversation becomes a reason to walk away? how much should a relationship actually be able to survive? i don't know. and maybe that's why i've been thinking about it so much.

maybe i'm asking because i've experienced the other extreme. i know what it feels like to lose almost everyone at once because of a decision they didn't agree with. i lost family. i lost friends. i lost an entire community. not because i stopped loving those people, but because my life was moving in a direction they could not accept. there was no conversation about boundaries or taking some space. there was a very clear line, and suddenly i was on the other side of it. more than eleven years later, i still think about the people who aren't part of my life anymore. birthdays can still feel strange. christmas can still feel quieter than it probably should. sometimes i wonder what would have happened if i had chosen differently. and then i look at my own life and realise that every choice has a price. i don't think that means i should have chosen differently. i just think it means i've learned that losing people is not always as simple as deciding someone is bad for you and walking away. sometimes people love you and still can't accept your choices. sometimes you love someone and still can't stay. sometimes there isn't a villain. there is just a relationship that broke under circumstances neither person knew how to handle.

i think about my grandparents too. they stayed together through the different seasons of their life, through good days and difficult ones, until death eventually separated them. when i look at that from where i stand today, i sometimes wonder how i would have understood their relationship if i had been living the same life with today's language, today's ideas about relationships and today's understanding of what makes a healthy life. i might have made different observations. maybe they would have made different choices. maybe they wouldn't have. i genuinely don't know. and i think that's the point. i only know the life they actually lived, not the life they might have had. i don't want to romanticise staying, and i don't want to romanticise leaving either. there are relationships we need to walk away from. there are relationships that need distance. there are relationships that need an apology. and there are relationships that might simply need two people to sit down, admit that something went wrong and decide whether they are willing to work through it. because if every difficult relationship becomes disposable, we might eventually end up with very peaceful lives. very protected lives. very well-boundaried lives. and very empty ones. maybe christmas becomes quieter. maybe nobody knows you're in the hospital. maybe nobody knows when you're struggling because there is simply nobody left who has known you long enough to notice. i still believe in leaving tables where you are not respected. i just wonder if we've become so afraid of uncomfortable tables that we've forgotten how to repair one. maybe some relationships need to end. maybe some need distance. maybe some need an apology. maybe some need years before they can become something different. and maybe some are worth staying through the difficult part simply because the people involved are worth the effort. i don't have an answer for where that line is. i'm just wondering how many relationships could survive if we became a little better at saying, “that hurt me. let's talk about it,” before saying, “you're out.”