I’ve never been very good at compartmentalization.

I don’t know how you switch something off at the end of the day and turn it back on later, unchanged.
For me, experiences don’t reset. They carry forward.

If we laugh together, share something private, brush shoulders, move in sync—those moments don’t stay where they happened. They add up. They become part of the relationship, even if the setting changes.

Some people don’t work that way.

For them, connection lives inside the container that made it possible.
Work stays at work.
Time-bound closeness stays in its moment.
When the container ends, the connection often does too—not because it wasn’t real, but because it wasn’t meant to travel.

For them, connection is situational.
For me, it’s cumulative.

Neither is wrong. They’re different ways of managing energy, attention, and continuity.

Situational connection is efficient. It’s clean. It protects against overload.
Cumulative connection is heavier. It creates meaning across time—but it also means you carry more with you.

I’ve learned that some people’s warmth isn’t a promise.
It’s a weather pattern.

Enjoyable. Genuine.
But not something you can build a calendar around.

Some people are motion.
Others are gravity.

Motion creates sparks, moments, momentum.
Gravity holds, remembers, stays.

The trouble shows up when those styles meet.

If you carry moments forward and the other person doesn’t, it can feel like something was erased.
You remember the dance.
They remember that there was music, once.

Nothing broke.
Nothing was misrepresented.
The connection just wasn’t built to survive outside its original shape.

The work isn’t deciding which style is better.
It’s knowing which one you are, being honest about what it costs you, and noticing when a connection can’t hold what you bring to it.

Maybe the point isn’t judging the boxes or the flow.
Maybe it’s recognizing when you’re inside one—and deciding how much of yourself you leave there when you step out.