About Some Relationships

11/05/2013

Most relationships begin and end unknowingly because it takes an effort to maintain them. Even the effort made has to be wholehearted. Many come across only few stay back, it is either their need or our insistence. All relationships come with an expiry date, some burn in the furnace of truth and come forth shining bright, some just turn into ashes and others just smolder and linger along to take those last few breaths and yet there are few others that you can pick up from anywhere irrespective of the years and decades gone by as if nothing ever changed.

The longevity and endurance of relationships depends on the effort put into nurturing them.  There are those informal relationships where one adorns the garb of formality because they are so fragile to stand the truth. If one asked, “How are you? the expected answer always is, “I am fine, thank you for asking?” even though the respondent was not fine. Though this formality is an effort yet it is our societal need, a societal shield to protect ourselves from the attacks of these relations. Will an end of such relationships bother us or we just wait for them to die a natural death so that we can breathe easy.

This can even extend to intimate relationships where being vulnerable is no longer a luxury but a non option. When silence in relationships becomes a condition of peace understand you have crossed that fine line between compromise and self-betrayal. Compromise is an act of volition made out of love when you make one you don’t walk away feeling you betrayed yourself. If the health and longevity of a relationship is dependent on either or else then it is not a compromise but a betrayal of equal partnership. When our so-called compromises start hurting us it is then we have to realize we are no better than those who are hurting us because we are also hurting ourselves by buying peace at any cost.

To pause and think for a minute how long can one walk on eggshells (either this or that) is a good strategy to take an inventory of our relationships.

Is it:

…the only time we get along is when no one is talking…

and we have made it work for quarter a century…