I can feel when I’m staying out of history, not joy

Dear Delyara, There are friendships I still maintain partly because of what they were, what we’ve shared, how long we’ve known each other, what ending it would mean about time and memory and my own judgment. But sometimes the actual present connection is no longer joyful, no longer easy, not even especially nourishing. That is a terrible thing to admit. Because loyalty is a beautiful thing until it becomes the reason you keep standing in rooms that no longer feel kind to your nervous system. I am learning that history is not always a good enough reason to keep paying the present.