Sometimes I look around and realize the people I once felt aligned with no longer feel like peers. Nothing dramatic happened. No conflict. No clear break. Just a quiet sense that we are no longer standing in the same place.
When that happens, the first instinct is to look outward. To wonder where my people went. To ask where I might find them now. But there are no clear answers, only the feeling of being slightly out of step with the room.
Over time, something shifts. We stop measuring ourselves by who others are becoming and start recognizing who we are becoming. The comparison fades. The roles loosen. What once felt affirming, being one of them, no longer carries the same weight.
There is a strange loneliness in that moment. But there is also relief.
Because the work is no longer about belonging to a group or matching a version of ourselves that once fit. It becomes about finding steadiness in who we are now. Learning to sit with that. Learning to trust it.
Outgrowing people isn’t always about distance or disagreement. Sometimes it’s simply a sign that we’ve stopped borrowing our sense of self from the room we’re in.
And when that happens, even the uncertainty feels lighter.
