Have you ever had someone in your life that you tried & tried to get along with & it seemed like no matter what you did, it was never going to get any better?
I have that problem with someone close to my family. In the beginning we were friends, going out to dinner, talking on the phone, hanging out. Then something happened. I think i am supposed to know what changed things, but I don't. I know there was some event, some decision, some comment, something, that transformed the friendship we had into what it is now.
And what it is now... complicated, involved, shoved under the rug, for the most part.
I've tried in my own way to initiate conversations that would lead to the steps of making things work again. My attempts were not met with an effort from the other side.
The events that changed that friendship are so far under the rug that i have to get a flashlight out to look for them. But just b/c those events were in the past doesn't mean that I don't still feel them.
You go through life doing what you have to do to survive. Most of us hope that when we look back on our lives there is more compassion, tolerance, love, joy and forgiveness than the opposite. No one is going to make the right choices all the time. No one is going to think of other people's feelings before their own all the time. But somewhere in the midst of deciding what it the right thing to do, people do make things work for the better.
When you have one of those times where you didn't make the right choice or decision and it changes things (as it has in my case), you just can't ignore it. Sure, you don't have think about it all the time. You don't have to harp on it every chance you get... but you can't just FORGET it either. At some point these things creep back to the surface - they always do. And usually when they do, they aren't very pretty. Being shoved under the rug for a long time would make you look icky too!
Some people don't like confrontation. (I happen to live with one of those people.) The only way to solve a problem it to let it out. Think of the concept of counseling - it's about letting the feelings out so they aren't inside eating away at you. Not many people in this world can read minds, but that doesn't people can't be let into what's going on up there.
Relationships are fragile. Regardless of how long or well you know someone, you can still screw up. You might not even know you are, but you do.
Relationships are give & take... some like to give more, some like to take more. All the best relationships are a balancing act. And like all balancing acts, performers fall once in a while.
Relationships are sometimes about swallowing your pride in order to make someone else happy. Pride is a hard thing to deal with... but for the right reasons, swallowing it makes you feel warm & fuzzy inside, not sick to your stomach.
i don't know what's going to happen with this relationship I spoke of. It's definitely going through some turmoil right now. I hope there is a way to make amends and for that reason I haven't given up completely. But I will be the first to say I have no idea of what to do next.
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