Gold!

Not everyone is incapable of repair. Some people can come back and say, “I was wrong.” Some people can sit with shame long enough to turn it into honesty instead of defense. Some people can listen without making themselves the victim. Some people can love you enough to be uncomfortable.

Those people are rare.

But they are gold.

Maybe healing begins when we stop pretending everyone is capable of that kind of accountability. Maybe we stop waiting.  Maybe we finally sort people into the right categories.

There are people who can love you only as long as you never ask them to be accountable.

There are people who can be kind only when kindness costs them nothing.

There are people who want access to you without responsibility for how they affect you.

And then there are the people who can say, “Tell me. I want to understand.”

Those are your people.

The rest may have been family, friends, lovers, history, habit, obligation, or old furniture you kept bumping into because somebody convinced you it was a home.