Enjoying the warmth of connection.

Relationships are part of the things we involve ourselves in because they can influence our well-being, happiness, personal growth, and life in general. However, it depends on the kind of relationships we keep. I am sure anyone who wants positive influence would embrace positive relationships too.

I have been in different kinds of relationships, and it took me a long time before I could cut off some of the relationships I was stuck in. The feeling that I wasn’t enough for myself was overwhelming, and I always felt I needed people to complete me. This feeling forced me to keep people who weren’t adding a pinch of value to me. I wouldn’t call them toxic relationships, but they had no impact whatsoever on me. Yet, I didn’t want to let go because I had too much uncertainty about the future.

Growing up, I heard stories of people enjoying the warmth of connection—how someone they bonded well with gave them a platform to excel and helped them reach greater heights. It always registered in my head to keep friends and build something meaningful, but things didn’t unfold as expected. What we did mostly was hang out and party; we barely had discussions about growth or life, which were the things that concerned me most. I had to endure, hoping we could be more useful to each other in the future. But as time passed, I started feeling drained and exhausted physically, emotionally, and even financially. I couldn’t keep up with that life anymore and had to break off.

Initially, I felt left out, but it wasn’t long before I started forming true connections with people I shared the same values with—people who wanted growth and not just parties. The funny thing was that I knew these people a long time ago, but we didn’t connect because I was too occupied with the wrong relationships. It all started with engaging on their status updates because they were sharing valuable messages. We began talking gradually, and our perspectives about life clicked. I can say we’ve come a long way, helping each other in different areas of life. The best part is that many of these people, I have never met them physically- we met on different social platforms and yet they have impacted my life in ways I never imagined.

Over the weekend, an old friend reached out to me, and I was surprised because we hadn’t spoken in a while since she left the country immediately after school. Her contact wasn’t going through and she wasn’t active on social media that I know. We exchanged pleasantries, and she mentioned how she’d been calling people to get my contact because I had changed my line a few years ago due to issues with network providers. We reminisced about old times, caught up on the present, and I felt happy about some opportunities she shared that could help me a lot.

These days, I don’t make friends easily, but the few I have are worth keeping. I feel super blessed knowing I have these people in my life because we've got eachother at heart regardless of the distance.