Reconnecting

Flashback to...6 January 2010

It felt so good to reconnect with my friend.  To have girl time; talk, laugh, share.  It’s easy to open up to her.  She’s very accepting and willing to open up to me as well.  I’ve been missing my friends.  I realize that they can’t always be there for me, but I’m certainly learning who I can count on when it hits the fan.  She has offered me a place to stay if I ever need it and to go visit her friends in Wisconsin this summer.  We’ll see where I’m at.  What a wonderful way to start the day!  She’s working on herself too.  She knows how to be independent.  She wants to heal herself.  She can face challenges head on, accept whatever happens, and look at struggles as opportunities.

The Beauty of Love

Love is a beautiful thing.  It’s inspiring to see the way that people treat each other, respond to each other.  To witness what they do for each other, the hardships and struggles that they endure, so that their love may continue to burn fiercely, or to simply brighten the other’s day, when they’re feeling down.  Love is not selfish, greedy, or impatient.  Acts of love strengthen the bonds between individuals, while demonstrating devotion.  True love is capable of persevering through any challenge, any obstacle, while still undergoing growth and change.  Yet, oftentimes relationships change in ways such that love takes on a new meaning and is expressed in different ways.  But then, was it really true love to begin with?  I thought that it was something solid, impenetrable, meant to last.

There are days when I miss being in love.  I love the beauty, excitement, and happiness that love brings into my life.  It feels as if my life has new meaning; a new passion has been incited.  I begin to see things in another light, appreciating he simple things in life just a little bit more.  That simplicity holds new meaning, as I experience it in different ways through the eyes of another.

Yet, love is a delicate balancing act between the self and the other, as both should receive equal priority.  Or perhaps, the self should remain a higher priority, since you are ultimately the one individual, who you can rely on to get you through life.  Only once you are able to truly love and accept yourself can you truly love and accept another and create a life together, while still being true to yourself. 

I feel that I have become wiser over the years, and ideally, more attuned to the ways of love, but such is an outsider’s perspective.  However, there are things that I must first do for myself.  I have much left to learn about myself, do for myself, and let go of for myself.  I am still in the process of self-discovery, and therefore, have yet to achieve total self-acceptance.  It would be dishonest of me to try to accept another when I have not yet fully accepted myself.  My love would be fleeting and restless, just as I am in life; bouncing around, desperately searching for my life’s passion, my calling.  I don’t want to be desperate in love, as it would end up left by the way side along with all of my other unfinished or unfulfilling self-pursuits.

But, oh, that beauty, that radiance, that warmth, that love.  It’s something that I look forward to, when I may deem myself ready and worthy.

What Is Friendship?

When I think of friends, I think of my two close friends back in high school.  We were integral parts of each others' lives.  We saw each other every day, talked all the time, spent loads of time together, shared our secrets, struggles, and all of the stupid stuff.  I suppose that's the ideal that I'm trying to attain again, since I lost those friends a long time ago, due to a fight between them and me devoting nearly my entire focus to my serious boyfriend.

Realistically, I know that I will likely never again have friendships like that because life gets in the way more and more as we age.  Life was simpler in high school with only our relatively insignificant teenage problems to deal with.  This is one reason why I savor my internship time so much because it brings me back to the kinds of close friendships that I remember; since, when living and working together constantly, we have little choice, but to be totally involved in each others' lives.

Yet, ultimately, that experience comes to an end and I am brought back to reality, in which I continue to struggle to understand what friendship is.  I know that friends aren't constantly in touch with each other, but will be there when you need them most, different ones in varying situations.  I suppose keeping these instances in mind will help me to determine who really wants to continue to be my friend.  However, I still find it difficult to determine who my friends are and what everyone's levels of comfort are.  I don't care for the idea of sharing really simple things, like a detailed account of my entire day.  I probably wouldn't even want to hear about that, especially nowadays.  I enjoy philosophical discussions, but it's easier for me to write them out because I'm able to take time to think things through and organize them into something that makes sense to me, rather than resembling the jumbled in my head.  I'm aware that not everyone feels this way though, so my emails end up being monologues.

I know that people are only able to contribute what they can, and I understand and accept that.  What frustrates me is the uncertainty, when I don't know what their situations are.  I have some friends, who I rarely hear from, being busy, but I know from past personal discussions and my history with them that they truly do care.  Then, there are other people who will send me a couple of e-mails, when we're only just reconnecting or getting to know each other better for the first time; and then, I'll hear nothing from them for months, not knowing why because I don't know what's going on in their lives.  I usually end up taking it personally, assuming that they don't care or I don't fit into their schedules anymore, especially if it's been several months.  There's no way to know for sure what the deal is, unless they tell me.  Novel concept.

I try to not have such high expectations for people because it's not fair to them; and they shouldn't have to meet my standards, particularly if I don't even meet them all the time.  I'm still working on this.  And I do trust easily, unless there's really something that unsettles me about someone.  I don't like judging people outright.  Generally, it takes me a bit to warm up to new people and I do act a bit differently with different people, based on how we connect, what we connect on, how comfortable I feel with them, how our personalities fit; any number of things.  But the initial trust and openness is still there.  I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's gotten me this far.

Acceptance and Appreciation

I think that I’m beginning to accept the break-up and appreciate it for what it is and what we had.  Not everything works out in life the way that we want it to, so that, oftentimes, we find ourselves forced to seek alternative routes in learning life's lessons.  However, this is difficult to accept and plan for, since we lack such foresight and are typically resistant to change. Perhaps, he and I had learned all of the lessons that we possibly could from each other and our relationship at this point in our lives; however, this exchange may have also simply become much more challenging with the miles between us.

Yet, during our time together, I did learn that it is possible to love and maintain a strong connection at a distance, and that though love may falter, it doesn’t fade, as long as the desire and effort to rekindle it is still there.  I learned that I can truly be an individual and live my life rather separately from a significant other, and that I can pursue my dreams in this way without guilt and regret.  And the break-up itself is yet another lesson in letting go and not hanging onto and fixating on someone who is not there or something that cannot be changed. 

For now, the distance certainly helps to cushion this moving on process, since British Columbia lacks the reminders of home.  Yet, the reminders that I do experience have triggered the happy memories, instead of anxiety over the errors and disagreements that occurred during the relationship, which is a shift in my usual post-relationship focus.  In the past, there have usually been things that I could have done differently to make circumstances better, easier, or to make my relationships persist instead of fail.  Initially, I did resort to this mode of thinking, wondering what I did wrong this time.  Granted, there are always improvements to be made and this relationship was far from perfect, as we are both imperfect humans.  Yet, we simply grew apart, or he grew apart, as the case may be, and there is nothing that either of us could have done differently without making unnecessary self-sacrifices, which was never an option.  There is a reason for all of this, but it has yet to be revealed; only in time.