Some people feel like shade on a hot day. You step closer thinking they will protect you, only to realize they disappear when the sun shifts. They stand near, not to shelter, but to cool themselves. At first, you mistake proximity for care. You mistake presence for loyalty. You learn too late that standing beside someone means nothing if they vanish when the heat arrives.They speak softly, almost sweet. Their words sound like concern, but their actions tell a different story. They watch you carefully, not out of love, but out of interest. They remember your weaknesses better than your strengths. When you fall, they do not push you, they simply step back and let gravity finish the work. Then they ask what went wrong, as if they were never close enough to be involved.
Time has a way of sharpening vision. You begin to notice who claps only when others are watching and who goes quiet when you grow louder. You stop explaining yourself to rooms that never listened. You stop watering plants that only grow thorns. Distance becomes less of a loss and more of a cure. Silence stops feeling empty and starts feeling clean.
I no longer chase shade. I walk in the sun and let it show who stays. Those who were never meant to last fade naturally, without confrontation, without noise. What remains is smaller, truer, and stronger. Not everyone who walks with you is walking for you, and once you understand that, you stop bleeding where you should have been guarded.
There is something unsettling about realizing that the hands you trusted were never meant to hold you steady. Some people stay close only to study your reflection in your shine, memorizing how it looks so they can survive without creating their own light. They mirror your laughter until it no longer sounds like yours, repeat your words until they lose meaning, and borrow your warmth until you begin to feel cold inside yourself. They call it friendship, but it feels more like occupation. You notice how they arrive empty and leave fuller, how conversations tilt toward their needs, how your silence comforts them more than your voice ever did. When you struggle, they offer distance disguised as respect, absence disguised as space. They are present for beginnings, never for endings, interested in your becoming but uncomfortable with your strength once it arrives. Over time, your instincts stop whispering and start screaming, and you finally listen. You understand that some bonds are built on convenience, not care, and convenience evaporates the moment effort is required. Walking away does not feel dramatic, it feels necessary, like stepping out of a room that has been quietly stealing your air. You do not announce your exit, you do not seek closure from people who never fully opened the door for you. You simply stop reaching, and that silence answers everything. What remains after is not bitterness, but clarity. You learn that peace is not found in being surrounded, but in being selective. That loyalty reveals itself without being tested, that real connection does not make you question your worth or soften your edges to be tolerated. And in that understanding, something shifts. You become harder to use, harder to confuse, harder to access without intention. The world may still mistake your quiet for softness, but you know better now. You know the difference between those who walk with you and those who walk through you, and you will never again confuse familiarity with truth.
