Be Careful Who You Let Close
There are people who don’t really enter your life to build anything with you.
They enter to benefit from what’s already there.
Not just material things.
But your peace.
Your space.
Your energy.
The peace you’ve been trying to protect while everything else around you feels unstable.
And sometimes you don’t notice it right away.
Because it doesn’t start with conflict.
It starts with familiarity.
Access.
Presence.
People being close enough to feel involved in your life without ever truly respecting it.
I’ve learned that some people move differently when they think you’re not paying attention.
They secretly don’t like you.
They come around for their own hidden agenda.
Some things look like support.
Some things look like concern.
Until you step back and realize your peace has been disrupted in ways you didn’t immediately notice.
There are environments where people don’t try to build with you. They simply benefit from having access to you.
Where your privacy gets misused.
Where your situation gets observed more than it gets respected.
And where people stay close not because they value you, but because of access.
Access to your energy.
Access to your space.
Access to your life when it benefits them
to be around it.
I’ve learned that not everyone around you is actually for you.
Some people stay close for information.
Some stay close for influence.
Some stay close because being around your life gives them something to carry elsewhere.
And over time, you start noticing how easily your life becomes conversations in their home when you’re not around.
Not in a way that feels respectful.
But in a way that feels like pieces of you are being moved around without your permission.
That’s what makes it difficult to ignore.
Because it’s not always direct.
It shows up in repeated behaviors.
In small comments that somehow always circle back to you.
And if you’re not careful, you start realizing you’re being spoken about more than you’re being spoken to.
That changes how you see people.
Not everyone is safe for you just because they are family.
Not everyone close to you is aligned with you.
And not everyone who smiles in your face is protecting your name when you’re not there.
I’ve had to learn that discernment isn’t about being suspicious of everyone.
It’s about paying attention to patterns that repeat themselves even when explanations don’t match behavior.
Because intentions can be hidden.
Words can be dressed up.
But patterns always show the truth eventually.
That’s when you have to put back up your wall to protect your peace and boundaries.
You need to make the decision about who gets access and who doesn’t.
And at some point, you stop explaining your peace and start protecting it.
If you read this and felt it, I want you to slow done for a second.
Because that feeling you just had… it didn’t come from nowhere.
Maybe you’ve been trying to make sense of people who keep showing you one thing, while saying another.
Maybe you’ve been questioning your own instincts just to keep the peace around others.
Maybe you’ve been around people who had access to you, but they are not true to you.
I want you to know you’re not imagining that tension.
You’re not wrong for noticing it.
And you’re not “too much” for wanting something to feel honest, and safe.
You have to move differently.
More quietly.
More intentionally.
More protected.
If this resonates with you, I just want to leave you with this: Trust what you felt while reading this.
That part of you already knows more than you think…
— Abi Brooklyn