To the Strangers Who Made Me.
Photo: Pinterest
First, let me celebrate. The Column has officially migrated to Substack. This platform is everything I didn’t know I needed! It gives me space to keep my work free while also offering subscribers bonus content - playlists, a weekly newsletter, and even more.
I’m grateful for the journey so far, and excited to see where this goes. I will link my Substack below! Now let’s dive into my newest addition: The Beauty in Being a Stranger.
Mosaic of People.
I’ve always said, “I am a mosaic of every person I’ve ever met.” It sounds pretty, and most days I mean it as a compliment to life. But sometimes the truth of that sentence hits harder than I want. Because I carry everyone. Loved ones, friends, enemies, and even exes - all wrapped in the silk of who I am now.
And I have to ask myself. Is that beautiful, or messed up?
Paradox.
I think about the people I no longer know sometimes. It’s wild to me that someone can once know every detail of your life, then vanish to the point where they wouldn’t recognize who you are now.
It makes sense, though. Every season leads to the next. Every lesson pushes you forward. Still, there’s grief tucked in the corners. I mourn the girl I was with them, even more than I mourn them.
It’s a paradox. The same people who broke me black and blue are also the ones who helped me grow into someone stronger. Now, when I see them at a gas station, it’s like none of it ever happened. And that’s so weird but also so cool.
Having a Stranger.
Let me be clear. This isn’t a “go back to your ex” piece. This is not your sign.
I don’t miss men who wasted my time. What I miss are the feelings: the thrill of what could have been, the friendships that felt earth-shattering, even the innocence of a childhood puppy I had to give up before I was ready.
Sometimes nostalgia is intoxicating. It convinces you the past was golden when in reality, it was teaching you how to let go. The truth? You’re allowed to process what happened. You’re allowed to say goodbye, even if you never physically got to.
“I Thought I Was Better Safe than Starry-Eyed”
In the spring of my first season of singleness, I met someone. Someone I already knew of, but didn’t truly know. It happened in the blink of an eye, completely unexpected, and it threw me off balance.
For the first time, I let myself do the thing I swore I’d never do again. I fell without apology, without hesitation. After the breakup that led me into this season in the first place, I told myself I’d be calculated next time. Careful. Ready for anything. But I wasn’t. I didn’t even get the chance to think twice.
I felt something I had never felt before and haven’t felt since if we are being honest here. But it wasn’t love, it was easy. Effortless in a way that felt insane after convincing myself something was broken in me. That’s why I’m dramatic about it, because it was real to me when I needed it most.
And the wildest part? I had no one to tell. I wanted to protect it. I kept it so close that by the time I was ready to share, it was already over. It fizzled out as quickly as it sparked. He ended it on a random Thursday, and I didn’t even let him explain himself. I didn’t want the why. Because it wouldn’t have worked and deep down I knew that. I wasn’t ready. And looking back I don’t think it was ever that deep for him anyway.
What followed was a period where I didn’t know how to move on. I let it consume me. Every brain cell. Every hour. If “crash out” was a commonly used term at that time, there definitely would have been a photo of me next to the definition on Urban Dictionary. But when I look back now, that stupid phase taught me something I didn’t know I needed. It taught me detachment.
It showed me that feelings aren’t lightning in a bottle. They’re everywhere. Joy when my mom calls me just to say hello. Excitement when I plan to go out with my girls. Yearning when I touch grass and remember Chuck Bass is nothing more than fictional man.
The truth is, I hadn’t allowed myself to feel. Then in an instant, I could feel everything and then just as quickly - nothing. And because of that, I learned how to let people be strangers.
Becoming a Stranger.
By allowing people to become strangers, I had to learn to become one myself.
My last long-term relationship was messy at the end - on and off, back and forth. And believe it or not, I was the one causing most of that chaos. Remember when I said in What Love Wasn’t that I created the storms that weren’t there? Yeah. Guilty. That was me. But the thrill I thought I needed wasn’t because I craved toxicity. It was because I was with someone who didn’t actually love me. Or at least not the way I needed to be loved.
When I finally woke up and decided the cycle had to end, I developed this weird complex. Even though I left, I still wanted to linger. I wanted him to see me everywhere, like I hadn’t gone anywhere at all. So I played a game of pretend. My mornings looked perfect, my nights were full of smiling photos with my girls. I curated my life like a highlight reel, not for myself but so he would know what he was missing. And then -plot twist- he started working in the building right next to mine. Suddenly, I was determined to have my Stevie Nicks moment. He would not forget me.
And honestly? He probably didn’t. But not because of the power move I thought I was making. Because I embarrassed myself. I’m talking full-on cringe - I think one day I even tripped and fell right in front of him. I couldn’t have written a worse scene if I tried.
But that was before I learned the truth: the most unforgettable thing you can do is disappear. All I had to do to become someone he’d never forget was forget him.
So I did. I stopped giving him an inch of my attention, or even a mile of my radius. I stopped listening to the songs that reminded me of the comfort I thought I needed. I stopped caring about who he was with or what he was posting. I stopped checking socials. Because finally, I decided - he was not worth worrying about.
And walking away changed everything. God met me in that choice and blessed me with things I could have only dreamed of before. I went on tour. I stood in cities I had never stepped foot in. I left the country and captured moments I’ll never forget through the lens of my camera. I was given genuine friends. It felt like a reward for finally putting my peace above my pride.
For a while, I was on cloud nine. But then shortly after I unlocked the next level of this game we call life and the cycle continued. I realized that living for the image - curating a life to be seen by others - wasn’t real living at all. I had to start living for me. I had to start becoming someone I would be proud of.
And the truth is - I’m not where I want to be yet. But I am exactly where she- the version of me who thought her world was over-prayed she would get to someday.
That’s growth. That’s strength. And I believe with my whole heart: people deserve to lose access to you.
Strangers as Teachers.
The more I reflect, the more I see the gift. Strangers are teachers. They enter, they shape, they leave. Some stay a season, some vanish overnight, but all of them leave knowledge behind.
Friendships, relationships, even the people who only brushed my life for a moment - they taught me how to feel, how to detach, how to grow.
There’s freedom in that.
A Love Letter.
So consider this article a love letter.
To anyone who feels themselves becoming a stranger. To the ones I no longer know, and to the ones who no longer know me. To the people who held pieces of my heart, even if only for a season, and to the friends who once knew every detail of my life but drifted out of frame. To the versions of myself I had to leave behind too.
There’s beauty in the distance. There’s freedom in the forgetting. But there’s also gratitude buried in it - gratitude for the ways those connections shaped me, even if they couldn’t stay. Some people are not meant to walk beside us forever, but that doesn’t mean their footsteps didn’t matter.
I used to believe losing someone meant I lost a part of myself. But now I see it differently. Sometimes, losing someone means finally finding myself again. Becoming a stranger isn’t just about letting go of others - it’s about reclaiming your own space, your own peace, your own identity without the noise of who you were when you stood next to them.
And if you’re reading this, maybe you’ve felt it too. The sting of watching someone fade. The ache of realizing you’re the background character in someone else’s story now. But here’s the secret: it’s not always a tragedy. Sometimes, it’s a gift. Because in that space of no longer knowing each other, we get the chance to become someone new.
So here’s to the strangers. To the ghosts of who we used to be. To the beauty in knowing that even if we never cross paths again, the memory of being known was enough.
“I do desire we may be better strangers.” — William Shakespeare
And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point.
