Sometimes, the things that hurt us change how we approach people long after the experience is over. I'm learning the difference between protecting my peace and keeping everyone at a distance, and figuring out how to let new people into my life without expecting them to hurt me, too.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how much our experiences change us, sometimes without us even realizing it. Not necessarily in the big, obvious ways, but in the little things. The way we approach people, the way we trust them, and the way we decide how much of ourselves we're willing to let someone else see. Sometimes, the things that hurt us the most aren't the things we talk about every day. They're the things that quietly change how we move through the world afterward. For me, I think a lot of that has to do with work.
Some of the best friendships I've made have come from working alongside people who eventually became so much more than coworkers. But I've also learned that not every workplace is what you expect it to be, and not everyone you spend eight hours a day with has your best interests at heart. After everything I've experienced in my career, I've noticed something about myself that I don't particularly love admitting. I'm more guarded now. I'm slower to trust people, and I'm a lot more comfortable keeping certain parts of my life to myself. I can be friendly. I can laugh with people, have conversations in the hallway, and show up to school events. I can get along with the people I work with and genuinely enjoy being around them. But actually letting those relationships turn into friendships outside of work? That's where I seem to hit a wall.
I'm in a completely new chapter of my life now. I have new coworkers, a new environment, and an opportunity to start fresh. There is absolutely no reason for me to assume that the people around me are going to treat me the way people in my past did. And yet, I still catch myself keeping my distance. The funny thing is, nobody has necessarily done anything wrong. I can't point to some huge incident at my current job and say, "This is why I don't trust anyone." It's more subtle than that. I think I've become so accustomed to protecting myself that sometimes I do it before there's even anything to protect myself from, and that's a weird realization to have about yourself.
Part of me thinks that if I keep my work life and personal life separate, I can avoid getting hurt again. If I don't tell people too much, I don't have to worry about what they'll do with that information. If I don't get too close to anyone, I won't have to deal with the disappointment of finding out that someone I trusted wasn't really the person I thought they were. I can show up, do my job, go home, and keep my life moving without allowing anyone to complicate it…but the other part of me knows that this isn't how I want to live.
I want people I can text after work, people I can make dinner plans with on a random Tuesday, people who know what's going on in my life beyond what happens between the first bell and the end of the school day. I want to have coworkers who eventually become the people I look forward to seeing outside the building. I want to feel like I have people.
Sometimes it takes time to find your place in a new environment, and not every coworker is going to become a close friend, and that's completely ok, but I also have to be honest with myself about whether I'm actually giving those relationships a chance to develop or whether I'm making it difficult for anyone to get to know me in the first place. Because there's a difference between having boundaries and building walls so high that nobody can get through them. And sometimes, when you've been hurt, those two things can start to feel the same.
I don't think the answer is to trust everybody. I'm not going to suddenly tell everyone my entire life story or pretend that every person I meet has good intentions. I think there's a lot to be said for protecting your peace, keeping certain things private, and allowing people to show you who they are over time. But I also don't want to get to a point where I'm so focused on making sure nobody can hurt me that I miss out on the people who might actually be good for me. That's the part I'm still trying to figure out.
How do you let people in without feeling like you're putting yourself at risk? How do you learn from past experiences without carrying them into every new relationship? How do you know when you're being smart about who you trust and when you're just letting fear make the decision for you?
I know that the people in my current life aren't responsible for what happened in my past, and I don't want to treat them as if they are. At the same time, I can't pretend that my experiences haven't affected me. Sometimes you don't realize how much something has changed you until you find yourself reacting differently in a situation that has nothing to do with what happened before.
Maybe that's part of growing up, too. You learn things about yourself that you aren't necessarily proud of. You recognize habits you've developed to protect yourself, and you have to decide whether those habits are still serving you. You realize that moving forward doesn't always mean leaving everything behind. Sometimes it means figuring out what you're carrying with you and deciding what deserves to stay.
I think about the friendships I've made throughout my life, including the really good ones that came from previous jobs, and I remind myself that genuine connections are possible. I've experienced what it's like to have people in your corner, people you can laugh with, confide in, and trust. Those experiences didn't disappear just because other experiences hurt me. And I don't want the bad ones to have the final say in how I approach every friendship that comes next.
Not everyone is going to become your friend. Not everyone is going to understand you, and not every relationship will turn into what you hoped it would. That's life. But somewhere between trusting everyone and trusting no one, there's a middle ground. A place where you can have boundaries, pay attention, and still allow yourself to be open to the possibility of something good.
Maybe that's where I need to start. I need to remind myself that I can protect myself without isolating myself. I can learn from what happened without expecting it to happen again. And I can take my time trusting people without deciding in advance that they aren't worth trusting at all.
I don't need to have my guard up with everyone. I just don't want to keep it up with the people who haven't given me a reason to.
Maybe the next chapter is about letting good people into your life, even when there's no guarantee that things will work out perfectly.
