It’s suddenly time to care—despite years.
Outdated website info turns urgent. An ex invades your current relationship. The latest political scandal demands outrage (while older mysteries remain unsolved.) Past small cruelties now require loud apologies, only to be forgotten once the bridge is patched.
This signals inner change through external pressure: to maintain an equilibrium of “who we are” we must shift behaviors to ameliorate coincidental demands from the outside.
The unfortunate result is temporary equilibrium. We cannot balance our idea of self with the conflicting, coincidental demands, so we triage and pare down until a core identity remains.