There are some people in this world that continue to affect you even long after they’re gone. It’s that gravitational pull that messes with you and makes you wonder what exactly the Universe is trying to tell you by bringing these people in and out of your life.

Maybe that’s why on a random Thursday night I was in the same dimly lit bar I frequented once every few months. His text just says “drinks?” and I know exactly when and where. I know because we’ve been doing this for years now.

It’s funny how we know we need to let go of someone but we continue to allow ourselves to get trapped in the same scenarios. That’s because every time that person contacts you whether it be a text, email or phone call it’s like someone pushed the reset button. After that then it’s like all the feelings you had pushed aside are ready to just explode again. Unless you’re strong enough to just not. To not indulge in the temptation of seeing that person and hear what they have to say. I wasn’t strong enough to leave this piece behind yet.

Maybe that’s why I was spending my Thursday night with someone I see quarterly, if that. He sits in the same place every time. Orders the same drink for me and for him every time. And I look down at his silver ring on his left hand thinking about how it wasn’t there when we first met every time. We have the same heart to heart about what exactly was bothering him this time except I already know. Then we take a trip down memory lane when we used to listen to music in the back of his truck bed and make out under the stars.

Maybe that’s what draws us back to a person.

Or maybe it’s just simply that we hold tight to the things we don’t want to let go of just yet. Five years later, I should have let go of him the second he walked away. Not because he was bad but because we no longer served each other. We served each other’s egos.

Eventually the conversation will circle around to how we should have probably ended up together. We’ll end up staring at each other silently wondering what would have been different if we had just made things work. If we just weren’t too young. If we weren’t just too dumb. If I was a little tamer and he was a little wilder. If we figured out that maybe, just maybe, this was worth fighting for.

We all go through periods of our life where we always think the grass would be greener if we had just made a different decision. But if you look at those choices and where it’s led you, most of the time you wouldn’t take anything back. You’d continue with your path because ultimately this is where you want to be and what works for you.

Our lives are not made up of right or wrong choices. It’s made from the best possible choice or the choice that felt right in the moment. We could spend years analyze every conversation, every interaction, every painful moment and try to figure out how everything would have gone if we had just done something a little different.

Looking back at those brown eyes that pull me in every time, that Thursday will be the last time we see each other. It was time to not only grow up but also stop using each other as a crutch. We made the decisions we made back then and we continue to make the ones that led us down different paths in the first place. So let go of the things that no longer serve you.

Because when the past comes calling, it really has nothing new to say.