live or tell

Letting Go

Growing older means learning to let go of certain relationships.

I.

Sometimes, you do whatever you can to save a friendship, but in the end, it too sours. Or, you stop rationalizing why a certain person doesn’t care anymore. It’s not that you’ve done something wrong, but that you are in different places.

II.

It is the end of the year and the music I love is more exact. Does age mean stagnation? The artists may be different, but the genre stays the same. Compartmentalized aesthetics feels like the sort of thing I adapted to rather than pursued. Acknowledging compartmentalized aesthetics feels adult, as in, “I know what I like and that is that.” I am giving up the way I hear music. It is methodical, rigorous.

III.

There is no such thing as organic leisure anymore. I program parties into my calendar, get reminders on my phone. A friend asks what I am doing tonight, and I have to look through what I wrote. Plans are for planning. But this frees me to enjoy and opens me up to conversation. I am there because I know it will be good. My eyes are wide and curious. “Hello,” I’ll say.

—britticisms