Over the weekend I had a chat with someone I had an on-again, off-again relationship for many years.
She reached out because she was “concerned.” There’s history there. Not small history. The kind of history where boundaries blurred, emotions ran hot, and I lost myself trying to make sense of the dynamic.
I over-explained.
Over-functioned.
Over-tolerated.
Over-analyzed.
I would waffle between wanting distance and wanting reconciliation. Between clarity and confusion. Between thinking we were deeply connected and remembering exactly why we weren’t good for each other.
That pattern lingered too long after the relationship ended. Or as I used to put it, past it’s best by date.
So when she called, part of me was aware: this is familiar terrain.
We talked about a lot of things. It was Family Day so we got caught up on our families, her son’s shenanigan and her recent trip to Cuba. All very calm. Reflective. Civil.
At one point, finances came up.
“No. We’re not discussing finances. That’s a hard boundary.”
There was a pause.
She joked about it. Lightened it. Pushed back gently.
I didn’t move.
Not angrily. Not coldly. Just steady.
And here’s what makes this moment matter: I could never hold a boundary with her when we were together.
Not one that stuck.
If she pressed, I folded.
If she questioned, I explained.
If she implied some deeper emotional or even psychic connection, I would get pulled into the swirl of it.
But I do see clearly now that the dynamic used to destabilize me.
This time, it didn’t.
What struck me wasn’t the content of the conversation. It was the absence of chaos inside me. No spike. No scramble. No need to justify.
Just: “This is a hard boundary.”
She congratulated me, said I sounded real.
I replied, “I teach how to set boundaries. I practice what I teach.”
And I meant it.
Growth, at least for me, doesn’t look like dramatic declarations. It looks like not collapsing in familiar territory. It looks like not getting pulled into old gravitational fields.
It looks like staying seated in myself.
For years, I confused connection with intensity. I confused chemistry with compatibility. I confused explaining myself with being understood.
Now I know better.
A boundary isn’t rejection.
It isn’t hostility.
It isn’t punishment.
It’s self-respect without performance.
If you’ve ever had someone in your life with whom you consistently lost yourself, you’ll understand this:
The real work isn’t avoiding them forever.
It’s being able to sit across from them and remain intact.
That’s new for me.
And that’s worth naming.
