"im protecting my peace."

“i’m protecting my peace.”

we say it like a conclusion. like once the words leave our mouth, there isn’t really anything left to discuss. i’m protecting my peace. i’m choosing myself. i’m setting a boundary. i’m removing myself from the situation. and that’s just it.

and sometimes, we should.

i want to make that very clear before i go any further because i am not about to sit here and tell anyone to stay somewhere they are being mistreated just for the sake of being more understanding. some people know exactly what they’re doing. some people hurt you repeatedly and call it a mistake every single time they’re held accountable. some people manipulate, lie, disrespect you, and only apologize because they don’t want to deal with the consequences.

you don’t need to stay around long enough to collect enough evidence to justify leaving. you are allowed to protect yourself. you’re allowed to say enough. you’re allowed to close the door.

but what i’m wondering is whether we’ve gotten so good at recognizing what we won’t tolerate that we’ve forgotten how to recognize a human mistake. because to me there is a difference.

someone disappoints us and suddenly they’re a bad friend. someone says the wrong thing and suddenly they’re toxic. someone doesn’t respond the way we hoped and suddenly they’re emotionally unavailable. someone makes a mistake and we’re questioning their entire character.

we’ve become really good at diagnosing people. maybe too good, and not nearly as good at letting people be people.

because people are going to get things wrong. they’re going to forget things. they’re going to misunderstand you. they’re going to say something that comes out completely wrong. they’re going to have a bad day and respond poorly. they’re going to make assumptions. they’re going to disappoint you. sometimes they’re going to hurt your feelings without ever intending to.

and that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. but it also doesn’t always mean you have to end the relationship. i think somewhere between “that wasn’t okay with me” and “you no longer get to exist in my life” there is supposed to be a conversation. and a lot of us are skipping it.

because leaving feels decisive. leaving feels powerful. leaving means you don’t have to sit in the uncomfortable part where you explain why something hurt you and wait to see what the other person does with that information.

you don’t have to risk them becoming defensive. you don’t have to hear their side. you don’t have to admit that maybe you misunderstood something. you don’t have to give them the opportunity to disappoint you again.

and sometimes, honestly, that is exactly what we need. but sometimes leaving isn’t self-respect. sometimes it’s just avoidance with a much more understanding label that people won’t question.

and there’s another part of this that i just want to say. because i notice how quickly women, especially, can be willing to cut off a friend. a sister. a cousin. a mother. somebody we’ve known for ten, fifteen, twenty years. one disagreement, one betrayal, one season of not feeling understood, and suddenly it’s, “i’m protecting my peace.”

but then they get into romantic relationships and somehow the standard changes. all of a sudden there’s more context.

maybe he’s just going through something. maybe she’s never been loved properly before. maybe they have a hard time communicating. maybe they’re afraid of intimacy. maybe they’re working on themselves. maybe they didn’t mean it that way. maybe they’ll change. maybe they just need time.

we can become incredibly fluent in explaining the behavior of the person we’re in love with while being completely unwilling to extend that same curiosity to the people we call our friends.

and for us to go and say, “i’m protecting my peace”?

girl, boo. because what exactly are we protecting ourselves from?

a conversation?

being disappointed?

having to admit that someone we love is imperfect?

having to sit with conflict long enough to find out whether the relationship can actually survive it?

because if your boyfriend can hurt your feelings and you can have three conversations, two arguments, a cry, a breakthrough, a five-hour phone call, and somehow still believe the relationship is worth fighting for, why does your best friend get one bad moment before you decide she’s no longer your person?

why does romantic love get the benefit of the doubt that friendship doesn’t?

why are we willing to call a relationship “complicated” when it’s romantic but “toxic” when it’s platonic?

and i’m not saying this because i think women should tolerate bad behavior from their partners. actually, quite the opposite. i think it’s worth asking why we sometimes reserve our deepest patience for the person we’re dating while expecting our friends and family to get everything right.

because friendship is a relationship, too. family is a relationship, too. community is made up of relationships.

and if we want the kind of community we keep saying we’re looking for, then we have to be willing to practice the same things inside of our friendships that we expect from our romantic relationships: communication, accountability, patience, forgiveness, repair.

we can’t keep saying we want community while treating every rupture as a reason to leave it. because sometimes people really are showing you who they are. believe them. absolutely. but sometimes people are showing you something else. they’re showing you that they’re human. and those are not always the same thing.

i think sometimes we’ve gotten so good at recognizing red flags that we’ve forgotten that not every uncomfortable thing is a warning sign. sometimes it’s just a conversation we haven’t had yet.

and that’s the part i’m really trying to get at.

we don’t need to become people who stay everywhere just because leaving is hard. but i also don’t think the goal of healing is to become so independent that nobody is ever allowed to inconvenience, disappoint, misunderstand, or hurt us.

because that isn’t peace. because “protecting my peace” can mean protecting yourself from genuinely harmful people. but it can also mean protecting yourself from the possibility of being uncomfortable. and those are not the same thing.

there’s a certain amount of humility required to be in relationship with other people. you have to accept that the people you love are not always going to love you perfectly. your friends won’t always show up perfectly. your partner won’t always say the perfect thing. your family will misunderstand you. you’ll misunderstand them. and eventually, you will become the person who makes the mistake, too.

that’s the part that’s easy to forget when we’re standing on our high horse.

we want grace when we’re the one who messed up. we want people to understand what we meant. we want them to consider our intentions. we want them to remember everything good we’ve done before this one bad moment.

we want them to say, “that’s not like you.”

but when someone else does something that hurts us, suddenly their entire character is on trial. we don’t want context. we don’t want explanations. we don’t want nuance. we want a verdict.

and maybe that’s because we’ve become a little too comfortable believing that everyone else should have done the same work we’ve done.

because i’ve learned how to communicate, you should know how to communicate. because i’ve learned my triggers, you should know yours. because i’ve learned how to apologize, you should apologize the way i would. because i’ve learned what healthy love looks like, you should already know how to practice it.

but that’s not really how people work.

people are at different stages of understanding themselves. they have different histories, different communication styles, different blind spots, different ways of processing conflict. some people are learning things about themselves in real time.

and sometimes the person in front of you isn’t trying to hurt you. they’re just getting it wrong. that doesn’t mean you excuse it.

i don’t think that’s what grace is.

i think grace is giving someone the opportunity to correct it. there’s a difference between accountability and punishment. accountability is saying, “you hurt me, and i need you to understand why.” punishment is saying, “you hurt me, so you no longer deserve access to me.” and yes, sometimes punishment is necessary. sometimes there is nothing left to repair. but sometimes what we call a boundary is really just our refusal to let another person make a mistake in our presence.

and how can anyone actually build intimacy with us if they’re never allowed to get anything wrong?

how can friendships deepen if the first real conflict is the end? how can romantic relationships become secure if every disagreement is treated like evidence that the relationship is fundamentally unsafe? how does community even exist if everyone is constantly waiting for the moment someone proves they don’t deserve to belong?

we talk so much about finding our people.

but finding your people also means learning how to keep your people. and keeping people requires repair.

real relationships aren’t built on never hurting each other. they’re built on what happens after.

someone says something wrong. you tell them it hurt. they listen. maybe they get defensive at first. maybe you do too. eventually somebody takes a breath. somebody apologizes. somebody adjusts.

and then you continue.

that’s relationship. that’s friendship. that’s community. that’s being a person around other people.

of course, there are situations where there is nothing to repair. some people don’t want to change. some people repeat the same behavior because they know you’ll forgive them. some people weaponize your grace. and that is when leaving becomes necessary. but discernment is knowing the difference.

it’s being able to look at someone and say, “you hurt me, but i don’t think you intended to.” or, “you hurt me, and you’ve shown me that you don’t care.” those are very different situations.

and i don’t think we need another therapy term to tell us which one we’re dealing with. sometimes the person who hurt you isn’t toxic. sometimes they’re just wrong. sometimes the friendship isn’t over. sometimes you just need to have an uncomfortable conversation. sometimes your partner isn’t emotionally unavailable. sometimes they genuinely didn’t understand what you needed because you never told them. sometimes someone isn’t disrespecting your boundary. sometimes they simply didn’t know there was a boundary there. and sometimes you’re not being asked to abandon yourself. you’re being asked to communicate.

there is a difference.

i think we need to stop measuring relationships by how rarely we’re disappointed by them. because if that’s the standard, we’re all going to end up alone. instead, maybe we should pay attention to how well we repair.

how willing we are to listen. how willing we are to apologize. how willing we are to forgive. how willing we are to extend the same humanity we expect when we’re the one who gets it wrong.

because the people you love will disappoint you. they will misunderstand you. they will get it wrong. and one day, despite all the healing you’ve done, you’re going to be the one who gets it wrong, too.

and when that happens, i hope the people who love you don’t hold you to an impossible standard.

i hope they don’t immediately kick you to the curb. i hope they ask what happened. i hope they let you explain. i hope they give you the opportunity to do better. because that’s what we need more of.

not lower standards. not fewer boundaries. just a little more grace for the fact that none of us are going to get this human thing right all the time.

we’ve become so good at leaving. can we try to get a little better at staying?

not staying where we’re being harmed, or disrespected, or where we have to abandon ourselves just to keep someone else. but staying long enough to find out if something can be repaired before deciding it has to be destroyed.

because sometimes protecting your peace means walking away.

and sometimes protecting your peace means having the uncomfortable conversation that might save the relationship.

you just have to be humble enough to know which one you’re being asked to do.

for anyone who has ever read my work and thought, “I want to support this somehow.”

just a small way to say thank you and help me keep creating. no pressure, no expectations. my writing stays free, as always. I just wanted to create a tiny door for anyone who feels like saying, “hey, I appreciate what you’re sharing” and leave a little something behind.

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