By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©
Some Memories Are Best Left Unchanged
At 62, I’ve lived through six decades of friendships. Every ten years or so, there’s an evolution. New people come into your life. A few stay, and most eventually move on. In that revolving cycle, we come to appreciate each other’s company, character, talents, and sometimes, our usefulness. Life seems to have been designed this way for me. Over time, I’ve even developed an instinct for craving these transitions. Maybe it’s self-preservation. It’s growth.
Recently, I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. It said,
“There’s a heavy emotional toll that comes with holding on to dead relationships. They fill your life with noise—unanswered messages, awkward small talk, the guilt of obligation just because something once meant something.”
That struck a chord.
Because the truth is—life isn’t a museum of past connections. It’s meant to be lived peering ahead, with people who show who you are now, not who you once were.
Outgrowing someone isn’t betrayal. It’s growth. Letting go doesn’t mean you never loved them. Instead, it means you love yourself enough to protect your peace.
That’s how I feel about many past connections. Some, I miss dearly. Others, I’ve outgrown. And a few? I had to run for my survival.
One thing I’ve learned about long-term relationships—whether with people, places, or versions of ourselves—is the importance of taking regular inventory. What am I still carrying? What deserves to come with me into the future, and what needs to be laid to rest?
For me, I try to leave behind no unfinished business where love, sincerity, or kindness once lived. If you hope to rekindle old ties after a long silence, I offer this gentle caution. Some memories are best left untouched. If you plan to relive the past, go ahead. But please, go without me. We survived it once. I’m not eager to tempt fate with a rerun.
These days, I want to do something different. If there’s something we always talked about doing—some dream we never dared to chase—let’s talk about that. Let’s look ahead, not backward.
Getting older has made me clearer about what I want—and what I refuse to carry. It’s also made me think about my father. I remember him telling stories from the war, from his school days, from the old neighborhoods we lived in. He’d speak fondly of his buddies, show me their photos, and share their shenanigans. But he kept them in their place. He never tried to drag them ahead into the current day. He understood something I now understand: some memories belong to a time and place that can’t—and should not—be reentered.
I still get news from “back home,” as I call it. From the town I left 44 years ago. Many of the people I grew up with never left it. And I can’t return there—not fully—without recalling the world I chose to leave behind.
Of the 25 classmates I graduated with, at least eight are gone now. Some were lost to murder, some to accidents, and others to illness. I came from a small farming town where everyone knew everyone. If the death toll isn’t sobering enough, something even more surprising is how many of us turned out differently. This is more than anyone would’ve guessed. Five of my classmates have since come out as gay. A revelation that would have stunned our small-town sensibilities back then.
Interestingly, it’s not the ones who stayed close to home who thrived—it’s the ones who left. Who dared to change? Who moved ahead?
And maybe that’s the lesson.
Some memories deserve our respect—but not our resurrection.
Some people, our gratitude—but not our return.
Because the past has its place—and so do we.
And some memories…
are best left unchanged.
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