I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately. About boyfriends and girlfriends, newly married couples and couples of who have been together so long that they have merged into a singularity of sorts. I've always sort of taken them for granted and never given the relationships of the people around me all that much thought. It sounds selfish but I guess a lot of people are mostly concerned about their own relationship and how they feel about it. If it's bad you worry about it and if it's good you lose yourself in it.
A few of the relationships in my life have become a little rocky as of late and I guess it has forced me to sit up and pay more attention to what is going on. I have friends who are working through an affair and have only been married a couple of years, I have a friend who has found a new love and is negotiating what their life together will look like, I know a couple with a brand new baby who are now trying to establish a new rhythm in their life, and I know people in marriages that do not fulfill them or nourish them and who have been pretending for most of their marriage that they are still in love. I know people who are most definitely in love and are fighting like hell to make sure it stays that way.
Relationships, no matter how perfect at first, have rough spots and are not always easy. There are also days where you feel like you could just hold that person and stay that way for the rest of your life...without food, or work, or money, surviving on that overwhelming feeling of oneness that can make you feel so full you could explode. And there are days where you are tired and you take the person for granted or even worse, are mean to them. It's a complicated dance and ideally, it lasts for a very long time. A conversation that you can't necessarily remember starting and hopefully will never really finish.
Love is not something that should exist on a back burner. It needs to be fed and recognized and fostered. I feel really lucky in my life that I have found someone who I love so much and who truly is my best friend. I also know, from watching the people around me, that things can change quickly and that if you leave it too long and things get cold it is not easy to warm them back up. I feel a sense of re-commitment as of late - a commitment to make sure my marriage and life is as good as I can make it, a determination to never let life take over living and a promise to myself and to my husband that I will never underestimate how important it is to be kind and good to the person you love.
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