Some friends of mine have recently hit a seriously distressing break up – adultery mixed with close friends and squire relationships does not for an amicable split, make. It’s hard to have a relationship break up these days with maybe a thousand friends of friends watching on via Facebook.
And everyone has an opinion, whether the situation has anything to do with them or not. The problem is, there is no, “I’ve made it! This is it!” when it comes to relationships. You can’t just say “I’m married now, I can relax”, or “I’ve found The One (TM), no more work required”. There’s no Mystical Love Mountain that you can orienteer to, conquer and then victoriously plant your flag at the top and say: “Mission accomplished!”
The human experience of life and love is far removed from mountaineering, and is rather more like the constantly undulating waves of a stormy ocean… an endless superposition of the cycles of love and loss, joy and sadness.
Only it’s not endless… we’re all going to die someday.
So that puts a finite limit on how long we get to spend in a relationship anyone and basically means at the outset that every single person you love… you will eventually lose someday. Some of those loves may end in an acrimonious breakup next week or next month, other loves may end seventy years from now in a nursing home surrounded by family. Which ever way your fates pan out, doesn’t really matter because either way it’s never easy, and the longer it takes… the more it’s going to hurt, the harder it is to recover and the longer you will grieve. This is just the natural way of things.
For many people the realisation of this very true reality is crushing… but it doesn’t need to be. Over time, we can learn to ride the waves of the sometimes stormy, Relationship Ocean, and instead of letting it push you under such that you never want to love again – you can love and lose and chose to carry on.
You can try and find perpetual joy to carry in your heart and allow it to co-exist with the occasional, yet inevitable, moments of reflective sadness, rather than the other way around.
Shake the water from your hair, climb back into your boat, and sail forth on the tumultuous seas with courage and optimism for the future. We can all learn to be better versions of ourselves. And we can learn to take the potentially infinite cycle of love and heartbreak without being actually broken.
Personally, I believe that taking the risks are worth it as the payoff can be life affirming, but the choice is for each of us to make for ourselves.
