In the last year, I’ve lost two friends. Friends that I considered “good” friends too. I thought I was over and done with this phase in my life. The thing about it is that… I suppose the saying is true: Time does make things easier. The breath of time has caught onto me once again. As this continues to happen – as people come in and out of my life like mere breaths, I’m slowly beginning to get used to it. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Should I be getting used to people just phasing in and out of my life like this?

Sure, yes, there are constants. There are those here who have been here for years, and some of them will most likely never leave (I’ve learned a while ago never to say never or always… “most likely” is the closest I can get because everything is transient and everything must be held in perspective). My husband. My daughter. My parents. My siblings. A couple of my friends who I won’t mention because at the risk of getting too personal and jinxing myself at the same time, they’re going to end up phasing out of my life just because I mentioned them here. Sometimes things are too good to be true. I’ve resorted to superstitions now.

Knock on wood and all that crap, y’know.

But you see, when I really think about it, I even surprise myself at my reaction to these “leavings.” At the end of the day, after evaluating how I feel and analyzing what the hell happened and if I did something wrong, I often come to the quick and sometimes sudden conclusion of, “Eh, well. I don’t care.” And then I move on. Sometimes I stay “moved on,” and sometimes I don’t. But I’m quickly finding that I’ve developed a thicker skin when it comes to relationships. I’m finding that not a lot fazes me anymore. Like water off a duck’s back. I could get easily hurt one minute, and then the next it no longer holds any place on my mind’s shelf. Suddenly, I’m over it as quickly as I was under it.

So many people have come and gone out of my life that somehow, I’ve lost a little bit of that hyper sensitivity that I thought I was just “born” with. Somehow, over the years, people leaving became easier, almost expected. Somehow, being “hurt” doesn’t feel so bad anymore because I get over it quicker. Selective memory has given me a gift: the gift to forget why these people were important in the first place and why I wanted them in my life in the first place. The gift of forgetfulness for the sake of not slipping away into self-pity and vengeance and all that icky stuff. It’s become a coping mechanism. I forget all the ickies so that the ickies don’t get to me. It seems to work. And if these people come back, it’s all the better because I forgot why the hell they left in the first place. Or why I left them.

And when I start drifting apart with people (as it tends to happen: I have come to also accept that it is this thing called life and sometimes “it is what it is”: no more, no less), I am more okay with this than I have ever been in the past. It’s a weird feeling for me: the feeling of not being as neurotic as I used to be. The feeling of not letting things get to me. The feeling of just living one day at a time… not dwelling on the past, not demanding more of the future, not analyzing everything the present.

Most of the time, it works. Though, sometimes, I still have my neurotic moments. I suppose I need those to keep me on my toes.