The Seasons We Shed: Outgrowing Without Bitterness

“You don’t have to hate someone to walk away.”

— Sylvester McNutt III

There’s something unspoken in the way we cling to the past. We feel obligated to keep people in our lives simply because they’ve been there for so long. As if longevity equals loyalty. As if shared history is the same thing as shared values. As if knowing each other for years automatically means we still know each other now.

But people are not fixed points.

And neither are we.

We evolve, often without permission, often without warning. Quietly, invisibly, in the in-between hours of daily life. And one day, you look up and realize the people who once felt like home now feel like echo chambers. Familiar, yes—but no longer nourishing.

The Softness of Saying Goodbye

We’re taught to associate endings with pain or conflict. If a friendship fades, someone must’ve done something wrong. If a relationship ends, there has to be a villain. If you no longer speak to family, the silence must be laced with rage.

But that’s not always the case.

Sometimes, we drift—not with malice, but with momentum.

Sometimes, the goodbye is more of a slow fade than a slammed door. A few unanswered texts. A few missed calls. A few moments where you realize you’re no longer showing up in each other’s lives—and maybe you both stopped trying.

And maybe that’s okay.

There is a sacred kind of peace that comes with letting go without resentment. Of recognizing that your story together is complete. That they were a chapter, not the whole book. And that doesn’t make the chapter meaningless.

It just means it’s over.

When Love Isn’t the Reason You Stay

We’re not often taught that you can love someone deeply—and still need to leave. That love alone isn’t always enough to bridge the gap between two diverging lives.

Two things can be true at once:

You can love someone and recognize that the relationship no longer fits.

You can want the best for them and know you’re not it.

You can cherish who they are and accept that you want something different.

Maybe you’re growing in a direction they can’t follow.

Maybe you want different futures, and forcing compromise would mean betraying your own truth—or theirs.

Maybe you know they deserve a kind of love or life that you can’t give them, not because you’re broken or unworthy, but because your paths simply don’t align anymore.

And so you leave. Not out of coldness. But out of clarity.

Not because you stopped loving them. But because you started loving yourself, too.

That doesn’t make the love less real.

It makes the goodbye more honest.

What We Don’t Say Out Loud

Here’s what we rarely admit:

• You can love someone and still leave.

• You can miss someone and still know they don’t belong in your life anymore.

• You can grieve someone who’s still alive.

These things feel contradictory, but they’re not.

They’re human.

They’re true.

They’re the tension of growing.

I know this because I’ve lived it.

I don’t have childhood friends anymore. People I used to speak to every single day are now just names I scroll past without stopping. I used to be extremely close with certain family members—we shared secrets, tears, entire summers. And now? We’re strangers who happen to share a last name.

There have been romantic relationships, too—some short, some long. A few that I thought might last forever. Some ended in pain. Some ended quietly. But none of them stayed.

And yet… I carry them with me. All of them.

Because even if the relationship didn’t last, the impact did.

The Quiet Lessons of Loss

Every relationship leaves you with something.

Some teach you what unconditional love can feel like.

Others teach you what conditional love looks like—so you can spot it next time.

Some expose your patterns.

Some show you your strength.

Some remind you what red flags you ignored.

Some help you dream bigger.

And some… just held space for you to exist when you didn’t know who you were yet.

That matters.

Even if it’s over.

Even if it ended poorly.

Even if they’ll never know how much they meant to you.

Closure doesn’t always come through conversation. Sometimes it comes in waves. In moments of unexpected gratitude. In the realization that you can think of them and feel peace instead of pain.

Outgrowing Without Bitterness

It’s easy to assign blame. To armor ourselves in anger. To tell ourselves they were toxic, or selfish, or unworthy. And sometimes, they were. But sometimes… they weren’t.

Sometimes, they were simply right for a former version of you.

The one who tolerated more.

Who needed more validation.

Who hadn’t yet learned what their boundaries were.

Who laughed at different things, cried over different things, believed different things.

And when that version of you changed, the dynamic stopped working.

That isn’t betrayal. That’s transformation.

And it doesn’t always need a grand finale.

Sometimes, all it takes is a soft internal nod that says, this has run its course. And I release it—without bitterness. Without blame. Without needing anyone to understand.

The Space You Make

When you let go of the relationships that no longer align, it doesn’t mean failure.

It means faith.

Faith in your future.

Faith in your intuition.

Faith that you don’t have to cling to the familiar just to feel safe.

Letting go creates space—for new friendships, for unexpected joy, for deeper alignment. And for yourself. For the version of you that no longer has to shrink to fit into old molds.

If This Is You…

If you’re mourning a friendship that faded, a family bond that’s frayed, or a relationship that you had to walk away from—please know:

You don’t need to demonize them to justify your departure.

You don’t need a dramatic exit to validate your evolution.

And you’re not “cold” or “heartless” for choosing peace over performance.

You’re simply growing.

And growth is not always loud.

Sometimes it’s a whisper.

A boundary.

A slow, steady shift.

But it’s real. And it’s yours.

“You can want the best for someone and still know you’re not meant to give it to them.”

— Unknown