Relationships

As you go through life, it is amazing how some key relationships work out.  In your younger days you have very set notions, you assume that these relationships will be a certain way for always.  And then you get pleasant shocks as you go through, grow through life.  And sometime rude shocks.  Very rude shocks.  But this is the reality of relationships.  And some of them, the ones you depended on in those younger, more naive days - the ones that you thought would be the ones to sustain you as you went along - those are the ones that end up being the most disappointing.  Sometimes gut-wrenchingly so.  Suddenly one day you wake up and realize that you have changed, they have changed, almost everything about the relationship itself has changed.  It is symbiotic no more.  It is energizing no more.  And it is nurturing no more.  And yet you have to invest at least the bare minimum in it.  Because that is how the world works.

For me, I have had some life altering realizations in these last couple of years.  As far as relationships are concerned, that is.  I have had eye-opening moments when I have realized which should be the key relationships in my life, and which ones end up being more investment than any kind of positive return.  My world-view has changed.  Mostly for the better.  But sometimes, my heart has been broken.  Not because I am not strong enough to handle it, or that it is the end of anything.  Not at all.  On the contrary, I have gained almost as much as I have lost.  My pillars are still in place.  I am heart-broken because these are the relationships I thought would be the most important ones that I would have in this phase of my life.  Well, anyway, life does not work that way.  Any naivete you had about these things when you were younger and less worldly-wise is appropriately dismissed by life's reality.

In any case, I am just thankful for all the positive relationships in my life.  I am fortunate for what I do have and that is what I will invest in.