Basics
In my drama free life, with the purpose of reflection on who I am now and who I am meant to be, it's nice to have little drama. My laundry's caught up. My dishes are washed. I am sleeping excellently! The mechanics of living only for me are much, much, much easier than conjoining them with another. I am, on my own, more relaxed, more at peace, than I've been in recent memory.
So... should a relationship materialize in my life, it shouldn't detract from this relaxation and peace. My bending for another shouldn't result in any degree of my own breakage. Perhaps that's the first thing I've begun to recognize. That relationships that batter me out of shape and render me unrecognizable to myself are not those which I must feel duty bound to perpetuate. Compromising too much of who I am to get along with someone whom I want to see (the HL) or what I'm generally inclined to do (TCMT) is doomed to failure.
Another thing I've realized is that the lion's share of relationships are, as I said in another post, "only for a little while." Friends come and go... parents die... spouses take hikes or die too... relationships end and new ones are forged... it's a constant cycle. It's my own bad luck that I'm the product of long lines of stable marriages (even if not all of them were ultimately self-actualized and entirely fulfilling) where people did remain married until death parted them, allowing a stable framework to shelter their own lives and the lives of their families. It's my own back luck that my entirely nurturing and careful upbringing has led me to expect a result from relationships that, more often than not, doesn't materialize.
Is it okay, though? Should I let this dawning awareness of the transitory nature of relationships affect my own expectations and standards? It's impossible for it not to. I may proceed a bit more cautiously... more slowly... more wisely?... with the idea of their -- and my -- humanity is an issue that must rest firmly in my line of vision instead of stars... or roses... and the idea of finding joy of the process of growing closer to someone else, instead of hoping to achieve a commingling of souls so that I can relax and feel spiritually at home, is the point.
It really is the journey, not the destination... because I've learned that the destination is the end, and all relationships are going to end, somehow or some way.
So... should a relationship materialize in my life, it shouldn't detract from this relaxation and peace. My bending for another shouldn't result in any degree of my own breakage. Perhaps that's the first thing I've begun to recognize. That relationships that batter me out of shape and render me unrecognizable to myself are not those which I must feel duty bound to perpetuate. Compromising too much of who I am to get along with someone whom I want to see (the HL) or what I'm generally inclined to do (TCMT) is doomed to failure.
Another thing I've realized is that the lion's share of relationships are, as I said in another post, "only for a little while." Friends come and go... parents die... spouses take hikes or die too... relationships end and new ones are forged... it's a constant cycle. It's my own bad luck that I'm the product of long lines of stable marriages (even if not all of them were ultimately self-actualized and entirely fulfilling) where people did remain married until death parted them, allowing a stable framework to shelter their own lives and the lives of their families. It's my own back luck that my entirely nurturing and careful upbringing has led me to expect a result from relationships that, more often than not, doesn't materialize.
Is it okay, though? Should I let this dawning awareness of the transitory nature of relationships affect my own expectations and standards? It's impossible for it not to. I may proceed a bit more cautiously... more slowly... more wisely?... with the idea of their -- and my -- humanity is an issue that must rest firmly in my line of vision instead of stars... or roses... and the idea of finding joy of the process of growing closer to someone else, instead of hoping to achieve a commingling of souls so that I can relax and feel spiritually at home, is the point.
It really is the journey, not the destination... because I've learned that the destination is the end, and all relationships are going to end, somehow or some way.
posted by bluedana @ 6:03 PM
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