Season. Reason. Lifetime.

A season.

A reason.

A lifetime.

A former boss always use to tell me, “Dani, people are in your life for one of three things: a season, a reason, a lifetime.”

I have come to treasure her advice. It helps me to love the relationships I have, learn from the ones that didn’t work out, and just let some go.

The hardest part is knowing which one you are in while in the middle of the relationship. With family, friends, significant others, we all start with hoping for a lifetime of happiness only to find they were there for a season or a significant reason.

I once dated a young man whose digital history was a catalog of his former relationships. Tagged pictures, status updates, and public conversations between his Loves at the time. He got caught up in the moment and years later it stood as proof that the moments he and I shared were eerily similar to what was once posted.

My mom loves pictures of her girls. Can you blame her for being proud of us? She will post them in her facebook and print them for her walls. But they too have become a public scrapbook of people who were a part of her daughters’ lives for only a season or reason. It was my sister’s fiancé that pointed this out… my mom had pictures of all of my sister’s little boyfriends and none of the man she was about to marry.

What I am getting at here… I made a promise to myself to be open. It is my digital mission to be the same person I am online that I am offline. But at the end of the day, I don’t want my blog, twitter, facebook, or next fad to be the thing that makes the people who come into my life for a lifetime stop and feel they aren’t special or significant.

What is the balance? How can I invite you in to the digital adventure of my life and still protect myself and others from the moments that don’t work out?