On letting go
"You must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of ruthlessness." I saw this quote today, from a book by Katy Maxwell, and it brought up some things I have been thinking about for a while. These thoughts are mostly about letting go of people, and simultaneously letting go of that 'version' of you that you try to cling on to and pretend to be when you interact with these people. Discussions about letting go of people in your life that may be harmful to you in some way or another are often made to be more serious than they should be. Words like "toxic" and "cutting people out" are thrown around and it makes it seem like only people who are actively abusive towards you, be it emotionally or physically, "deserve" to be cut out of your life, whatever that might mean. This is insinuating that something extreme has to happen in my relationships for me to have the right to "cut them out&q