There’s a line in Yulia’s piece where she says, “Maybe that’s part of what connection does: it holds up a mirror.” And that’s something I’ve thought about deeply. I think we often enter into connections, whether romantic, platonic, or familial, expecting them to be straightforward, expecting them to feel easy. But the truth is, connections are... See more

But the deeper I go into this reflection, the more I understand that even the connections that fade have their place. The ones that leave us, the ones that transform into something else or disappear altogether, teach us just as much, if not more, than the ones that remain. They force us to confront parts of ourselves we might not have known were... See more

We, as individuals, are ever-evolving. As we grow, we shed old skins, and sometimes, those we once shared everything with no longer seem to fit into the new version of ourselves. And the connections we thought were immovable begin to tremble at their core.