In the healing process, expect to be reminded of all the things you wish you said at times people hurt you. They can be the mental receipts your mind and body will react to in any moment outside of that event.

You might even think of what you could have done in response. Responses that could result in having a record. If/when you’re caught in a hypothetical sense, that is.

The cynical side of me says that only a few people deserved, or still deserve that. The other side says that you don’t deserve the consequences.

“You’re too pretty for jail,” is one of many mantras of mine.

They may wonder why you stay away. Why you unfollow, unfriend, block their account or phone number. Even if you don’t do any of that, a simple “hello” is best given to people that don’t do the things that have them end up on a particular list.

And if they feel any remorse for what they’ve done, they’ll feel your distance. More so if there was a time where you couldn’t go days or weeks without talking extensively about one thing, or nothing. You’ve found new people to do that with. People that won’t trigger what they’ve done, and possibly still do.

The sting of your absence can even have them sit with the stuff you don’t know that they did, and at that point there’s no need for you to know. You’ve enough evidence to move forward and close the account.

Just make sure you’re also in a place to recognize if or when it’s done to you.

Sometimes you may never know what you did to earn it. If you do know, much like them, you’ll find it hard to speak to them without apologizing for the distant or recent past.

And it can work both ways where, to paraphrase a meme, the offense is forgiven, but access is now denied.

So long as you know that you’re capable of harm that’s worth the cutoff(s), and do your best to not be that person anymore, you’ll do fine.

As my last entry stressed, you’ve been around people like that long enough.