I’ve been thinking about friendships and relationships in general. There is a fine line between letting someone walk all over you and accepting a person for who they are. I believe I am basically a good friend. I care about people, am loyal and can make a friend laugh. However, there are times in the past when I’ve acted badly or hurt a friend. There are times I’ve reached out to try to mend a friendship and it wasn’t well received. There are other friends who hang in there all of the time (You know who you are (Karen and Kristin to name two) but other people don’t seem to want to be bothered.
Looking back on some of my friendships that I harmed, I can see that I just didn’t have the skills I needed to mend fences. I wonder how much richer both my life and some other people’s lives could have been if they took my overtures as they were intended. I might have learned the skills at that time of how to strengthen a relationship.
How often do you cut people out of your life? Have you ever seen someone trying to make up with you but for whatever reason you don’t think it is enough. Maybe you tell yourself that you’ll meet them halfway but they need to work at it. What would happen if you met the other person three quarters of the way? Maybe they don’t have the skills necessary to do what you need. Maybe they really don’t know what to do. What if you role modeled how to patch up a relationship. It is normal for people to come and go in our lives but there is such a thing as continuity and having history with someone.
I just think that if sometimes a person isn’t so rigid or unwilling to give a little more than they think they should, they might benefit from the richness of relationship. If you are able to do go a bit farther for someone then maybe people will be able to do it for you.
People and relationships are not disposable. They are often worth going that extra mile.
“If one does not wish bonds broken, one should make them elastic andthereby strengthen them." ~ Ardant du Picq
