Your Move

We meet new people all the time, get new things all the time, and it really is hard to hold on to everything. This sounds ironic because just a couple posts back, I talked about hard it is to let go. Now I'm talking about how hard it is to hold on. Seems like I'm finding it hard to do everything! Worry not cos it's not true.

I had two very unexpected conversations with two very important people in my life. The first person, I hadn't talked to her in about 2 days. The other person, I hadn't talked to him in about 2 YEARS?!?! OMG! What do you say to someone who has been absent for 2 years? A lot of "How are you"s. I did just that and so did he.

The calls just made me think about Friendships. How often are we friends that bring joy to our friends? Do we make an effort to maintain our friendships or do we rely on others to keep the fire burning? Or what if try as hard as we may, our efforts do not yield results because we just cannot seem to get along with the people but we still wanna maintain that friendship? Complicated. Makes me think a lot about the friendships I have. I've given up on some, wanna give up on some and want so much to hold on to others.

I'd love to ask of my friends for trust, love and respect and say in return you'll get the same. But reality is that we cannot dictate who others are without causing negative consequences. When I wonder what goes on in the lives of my friends, it creates a yearning to get to know them more. I believe that a relationship can only grow if you give it your time. If you're not spending any time with the other person, how then do you expect to become closer, better friends?

Perhaps I am obsessed with the notion of friendship and not with actually having any friends. Maybe I like being fussed about, maybe I like being centre of attention, or maybe I just want to seem better than others or maybe I just don't want to be alone. Perhaps all I ask is for an opportunity to care about you.

It isn't easy to find out someone's double-crossed you and it isn't easy to find out you've been betrayed or abandoned by your best friend. But at the end of the day, do we go back to the dictionary to define those words? No! Those words are defined by our own expectations, our own experiences, our own mind. We label our experiences based on what we think they could be, what we want them to be and occasionally what others want them to be.

I complain a lot about what others do to me. I complain that people forget me, disrespect me, ignore me, are rude to me, complacent in our friendship, etc etc. And when I reflect, I see that the names of the experiences are labels given to me. Not once is it because my friend calls to say "Hey! I've decided to disrespect you. That thing I said earlier, that was spite. Bye!" No one tells us how to deal with difficult friendships. You just get given two very broad options - terminate or continue.

It's going to be hard to lower your pride but if we want something done, we have to be a little less self-centered and be willing to put in more than our fair share of effort. Your efforts may come to nothing. You may never receive the respect, trust or love that you so desire and you may feel bitter. But for fear of that failure, will you risk not trying and sacrificing the joy and satisfaction when you get the love, trust and

respect from someone who truly treasures you? Your efforts could mean everything. You must probably be waiting for the other person to make the first move. Somehow, so is the other person, waiting for YOU to make that first move.