It’s deciding not to step over it again
Life is weird.
If you don’t believe me, search for something once and then watch it follow you around for the next two weeks. Your smartphone pays more attention to you than most people ever will. It learns you faster. It adjusts faster. It responds faster.
If you’ve read this blog for more than a few days, you know I have a few recurring themes. The most obvious is my journey through the social fallout after his death—how I’ve coped, how I’ve adapted, and how sometimes I haven’t.
Social media, of course, didn’t miss its chance to weigh in. It threw this one at me:
“You’ve been kind. You’ve communicated. You’ve begged. You’ve pleaded. You’ve forgiven over and over again… What would bring you more peace—adjusting your boundaries to their disrespect, or adjusting your life to their absence?”
Good question.
I wish I had a good answer.
Maybe the wasteland does.
One of the things I’ve always loved about the wasteland is how simple the rules are.
You meet people. Some stick around. Some don’t. Some are just passing encounters—wave, move on, never see them again. No expectations. No obligations. No post-game analysis of whether you said the right thing.
In Fallout 76, I’ve got a massive friends list. Some people I play with regularly. Some I’ve played with once or twice. Some I probably won’t ever see again.
And then there’s the core group—about six of us—who’ve been playing together for years.
Some days we’re all in party chat, running events, joking around like nothing’s changed.
Some days we’re not.
No one takes it personally. No one gets offended. No one demands an explanation.
That’s the part that matters.
Somewhere along the way, in real life, we seem to forget that.
We forget that space is allowed.
We forget that absence doesn’t always mean rejection.
We forget that not every relationship needs to be maintained at all costs.
The last few years have changed a lot for me.
Some of it was grief.
Some of it was the pandemic.
Some of it—if I’m being honest—was me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this isn’t a “feel sorry for me” post. It’s not a plea for connection.
It’s the opposite.
It’s the realization that maybe I’ve been trying to hold onto things that don’t fit anymore.
And instead of adjusting my boundaries to tolerate that…
maybe it’s time to adjust to the absence.
That’s a hard shift.
Especially if you’re a people pleaser.
And I am.
Always have been.
Which means I’ve spent a lot of time bending myself into shapes I didn’t want to be in just to keep relationships intact. Lowering standards. Ignoring behavior. Making excuses.
Not because it was healthy.
But because it was familiar.
The problem with people pleasing isn’t kindness.
It’s the lack of boundaries.
Or worse—boundaries that move depending on who’s standing in front of you.
That’s not a boundary.
That’s an invitation.
And not always to the right people.
Anyone who works in mental health—or has spent five minutes talking to someone who does—will tell you the same thing:
Without solid boundaries, you cannot have healthy relationships.
Not real ones.
Not sustainable ones.
Because if everything is negotiable, eventually you are too.
So maybe the lesson from the wasteland is simpler than I’ve been making it.
I don’t have to engage with everyone on my list.
I don’t have to say yes every time.
I don’t have to explain why I’m quiet, or distant, or done.
If I don’t want to play, I don’t play.
No guilt. No apology. No internal debate.
Just… logging off.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care.
It just means I’m finally learning where the line goes.
And more importantly—
that I’m allowed to draw it.
Because the truth is, if you don’t have boundaries…
you don’t win some and lose some.
You just lose.
Every time.
And maybe—just maybe—
the safest place I’ve been lately isn’t inside someone else’s expectations.
It’s inside the boundaries I’m finally learning to keep.
Alongside a dog who doesn’t ask for explanations…
…and a memory of someone who, in his own way, always understood where the line should have been.