In which I come to a realization after an interaction with a human who can not yet talk

I am terrible at keeping in touch with people.

It’s not that I haven’t met people who have changed me and shaped me and made me the person that I am today. It’s not that I haven’t met people that I wish I was still in contact with today. It’s not that I never had best friends who knew all my secrets. 

Because I have and I did.

But I’ve always wanted to be the person who leaves. I’ve always thought of the lifestyle that I lead as a transient one. The people that I surrounded myself with meant something to me while they were surrounding me, but never enough that I made the effort to keep in contact with them when they no longer were surrounding me.

And I was ok with that. I had accepted that the people I met would only be in my life for so long before they would leave again so I should learn the most from them while I still had the chance.

And then I met my nephew. 

We were in the kitchen of my brother and sister-in-law’s house. I had walked in and then suddenly, in front of me was this very small person who I had never met before, but was someone who was very important to me. And, as I watched him bang his hands on the marble countertop, I realized (and I’m borrowing from John Green here) that, as long as I am alive or as long as my nephew is alive, I will be his aunt and he will be my nephew.

There isn’t a part of the African bush remote enough where I can escape that fact. 

And that nine-month-old baby made me realize that maybe I should start thinking about the other people and other relationships that I want to foster so they will still exist long after it would have taken me to figure out how important a particular relationship meant to me in the first place. 

I realized that you have to choose to let someone be part of your life. And you have to work to keep that person part of your life. Because, maybe, leaving isn’t always the answer.