I was talking with a friend tonight about how difficult relationships can be. They can be complex, scary and difficult. But in the grand scheme of things, are they really that complex?
He told me the story of his parents, who went through a very difficult period. They took a trip together, but didn't actually spend the time together. His mom spent most of the trip sitting on the beach, spending hours watching the waves come in.
Given the different tide cycles, the roughness of the incoming water changed every day. As ridiculously complex as the Earth's systems are, it always manages to support life (despite our best efforts to destroy it). This giant ball of matter keeps moving around the sun, slowly shaping its land masses, giving and taking away life, constantly changing. The Earth has been at it for millions of years.
When you think about it in that context, maybe the relationships we have in life aren't all that complex. You might go as far as saying that they're not even that important since they exist in a small fraction of time. If this amazing rock we live on can keep driving the tide in and out every day, should it really be that hard for us to conduct relationships?
The Beatles said all we need is love. That's half true. The other thing we need is the patience and will to also accept the shit, because the shit is a small price to pay for the ultimate benefits of love, friendship and human contact.
Indeed, my ability to operate effectively in interpersonal relationships is inconsequential compared to the chaos of the natural world. If there can be some order in that worldly chaos, maybe I overestimate the chaos of relationships. Maybe they're more straight forward than I think.
It's the ability to adjust to the changes. Let's face it, people change, even though the basics of who they are can stay the same. The ability to adjust to those changes, the willingness to adjust, is what helps keep relationships together.
Sometimes two people cannot adjust and the relationship falls apart.
Gordon and I had to meet that challenge. We had a 10 year period of adjustment, a period that was very stressful for both of us. It took a lot of patience, and the willingness of each of us to adjust to the changes in the other. But we came out of that period in a much better space than we were in, even better than when we first married.
The story about the parents taking a trip together but not spending time together really hit home for me. Gordon and I took a trip to Hilton Head at a time when things were beginning to fall apart. I spent the entire week on the beach and Gordon spent his time either playing games on a laptop or watching the summer olympics. He'd fall asleep watching TV in the the living room of the condo while I slept alone in the bedroom.
You know, the one major thing we both took out of that period of adjustment is to not sweat the small stuff, and the ability to forgive and moe on.