Latest / Who’s Your Person?: Friendship, Trust & Belonging / Why You Don’t Miss the Games: The Quiet Grief of Outgrowing Childhood | Who’s Your Person?
Transcript
- You just realized you haven’t thought about that specific cartoon in ten years, and instead of nostalgia, you feel a hollow ache in your chest. It’s not that you miss the game; it’s that you miss the version of yourself who still believed it mattered. I want you to think about a Tuesday night from three years ago. Maybe it was a group chat blowing up with screenshots of a meme nobody else got. Or maybe it was a voice note where someone was passionately explaining the plot of a movie you’ve never seen, using words like 'canon' and 'headcanon' with such fierce conviction. And here is the thing: you didn’t reply. Not because you were busy. Not because you were being rude. But because the energy required to pretend you cared felt heavier than the actual friendship. Let’s sit with that for a second. That heaviness. We talk so much about outgrowing people—the slow drift of friends who move cities, or dates who turn into acquaintances. We have entire frameworks for how to handle when a person changes. But we rarely talk about the grief of outgrowing the things that used to bind us together. The shared language of our youth. The rituals. The specific obsessions that once made us feel like part of a tribe. When those things fade, it doesn’t feel like a clean break. It feels like losing a dialect. You’re standing there, holding a word that no one else speaks, realizing you’re alone in a room full of people you love. I remember my best friend Sarah and I used to spend every Sunday morning debating which cereal box had the most tragic backstory. Was it the marshmallows? The chocolate flakes? We would lie on her living room floor, staring at the ceiling, analyzing the nutritional value of childhood joy. It was absurd. It was meaningless. And it was sacred. Last week, she sent me a link to a new breakfast brand. I opened it. I read the ingredients. And I felt… nothing. No spark. No urge to lie on the floor. Just a quiet, polite recognition that this was just food. And in that moment, I felt a sharp pang of loss. Not for the cereal. But for the time when we could find magic in the mundane together. When our shared interests were the glue that held our conversations together. Now, the glue is thinner. We talk about work. We talk about aging parents. We talk about the weather. And while those are important topics, they don’t have the same electric charge as knowing someone who understands your specific, weird history with a fictional universe. What did that cost you? The cost is the realization that you can’t go back. You can’t force yourself to care about something just to keep the connection warm. You have to let the interest die so the relationship can breathe. We wear masks of nostalgia like armor. We say, 'Oh, I love watching old movies with them,' even when we’re checking our phones under the table. We say, 'Yeah, I remember that band,' when we only know two songs. We do this because we’re terrified that if we stop participating in their world, we’ll disappear from theirs. We think that shared memory is the only thing keeping us tethered. So we perform. We nod. We laugh at jokes that aren’t funny anymore. We curate a version of ourselves that fits into the puzzle pieces of their current life. But here is the truth that hurts: you cannot build a future on the foundation of a past that no longer exists. If you are only connected through what you used to love, then you are not friends. You are archivists. And archiving is a lonely job. It requires you to preserve things that are already dust. You start feeling like a museum guide, pointing out exhibits that no one visits anymore, wondering why you’re still standing there when the building has been closed for years. It’s exhausting to be the keeper of the flame when everyone else has walked away from the fire. And you deserve to rest. You deserve to be with people who are interested in where you are going, not just where you’ve been. So, what do we do? Do we cut ties? Do we ghost the people who loved the same things we did? No. That’s too simple. Because the bond isn’t gone. It’s just transformed. The shared interest was never the point. The point was the witness. They witnessed your joy. They witnessed your obsession. They saw you at your most unguarded, most excited, most alive. That witness remains. Even if you don’t watch the show anymore, even if you don’t play the game, the fact that they saw you enjoy it matters. It matters that they laughed with you. It matters that you felt safe enough to be silly together. That safety is still there. It’s just waiting for a new language. A new way to connect that doesn’t rely on the external object of affection. This is where the real work begins. This is where you have to learn to be bored together. To sit in silence without needing a distraction. To share a thought that has nothing to do with pop culture or shared history. To say, 'I don’t get this anymore, but I want to understand why you do.' Or to say, 'I’m done with this, and I need you to respect that without making me feel guilty.' You’re allowed to outgrow them. Not the person, necessarily. But the dynamic. The ritual. The way you used to connect. Letting go of that ritual is not a betrayal. It’s an evolution. There is a specific type of grief that comes with this. It’s the grief of parallel lives. You look at your friend, and you see the person who still loves that thing. And you wonder if they see you differently now. Do they think you’re boring? Do they think you’ve lost your edge? Do they miss the old version of you? I’ve wondered this myself. I look at my college roommate, who still collects vinyl records and quotes indie films. And I worry that she thinks I’ve become too practical, too serious, too adult. But then I remember that she also talks about how tired she is of the music scene. How she misses the simplicity of our dorm days. We are both grieving. We are both holding onto different pieces of the same past. And that’s okay. We don’t have to be identical to be close. We don’t have to share the same hobbies to share the same soul. The depth of a friendship isn’t measured by the number of shared interests. It’s measured by the willingness to hold space for each other’s changes. To say, 'I see you’re different now. I like you anyway.' This is the hard part. It requires vulnerability. It requires admitting that you’re scared. That you’re afraid of being left behind. That you’re afraid of being forgotten. But if you don’t admit it, you’ll stay stuck in the past, performing for an audience that has already left the theater. So, how do we build the next chapter? How do we create new rituals that honor where we’ve been without trapping us there? Start small. Share a new interest, however small. A podcast episode. A recipe. A walk in a park you’ve never visited. See if it sparks anything. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. The goal isn’t to replace the old joys. The goal is to make room for new ones. To allow your friendship to expand beyond the boundaries of your shared history. To trust that you can be known without being remembered. And if you can’t? If the gap is too wide, if the silence is too loud, if the performance is too tiring? Then it’s okay to step back. To give yourself permission to mourn the loss of that specific connection. To acknowledge that some chapters end, and that’s not a failure. It’s just the end of the book. You are not responsible for keeping the flame alive if no one else is adding wood to the fire. You are allowed to let it burn down. You are allowed to sit in the warmth of the ashes for a while. And then, when you’re ready, you can start a new fire. With new people. Or with the same people, in a new way. The grief is real. But so is the love. And love, true love, can survive the change. It just has to be willing to change itself. Take a breath today. Notice what you’re holding onto just because it’s familiar. Ask yourself if it’s still serving you. And if it’s not, thank it for what it was, and let it go. You’re allowed to outgrow them. I’ll see you next time.