The Relationship
First of first, I believe love should be part of relationship, however, love is much wider than the relationship itself. I actually see quite a lot of selfishness and limitations (+hate,jealousy,etc..) in many relationships, while I consider love to be wide, open and pure, as I wrote about it in one of my previous posts.
We could imagine relationship as soup, and love is water. So it’s (main) ingredient, but it’s quite modified, and mixed with other things. When it comes to relationship, the biggest problem is understanding what relationship should be, and our ideas about it, are really quite strange; relationship based on such a ideas easily fail, even if it had potential in the beginning.
To be single (for longer period of time) is very often considered as some kind of curse, and single person, feels like a big failure. Very often, people consider single person as odd, and above all, as unhappy. Can relationship equals happiness, and can being single, be worst than being in bad relationship? I think answer to both is NO.
Is it true that, no matter how unhappy you are in the relationship, it can’t be worst than being single? Well, it doesn’t make sense to me. Relationship of two persons, with such a strange ideas, must turn into something awful and frightening, after all, they both were (at least partly) pushed into it because of fear of being single (and fear of being odd, unhappy, etc..)
Many people wrongly understand world “single”, they confuse it with word “alone”; that’s not correct of course, being single isn’t the same as being alone. Being single is just not being in relationship, while being alone, is being on your own (no people around you whatsoever, no friends, - nothing). Furthermore, thing that cause even greater confusion is (conscious or subconscious) mixing of words “alone” and “lonely”, which leading into wrongly believing that “single” equals “lonely” — and of course, no one wanna feel lonely.
But, I’m thinking, being in a bad relationship, where the other person doesn’t consider you, the relationship in which you constantly feel ignored, - isn’t that even worst than feeling lonely? For good (healthy) relationship, which won’t bring pain and frustration into our life, we must first learn to be single.
To be single
To be single, it’s not something that we need to fix, it’s not limitation whatsoever. We can fully function while single, and mostly important, we can be happy.
The first thing we must be aware of, is that being single it’s totally fine, and that the relationship won’t bring any salvation. We absolutely must start consider ourselves as individual person, which is able to survive and being happy without relationship.
As we realize mentioned things, and actually consider ourselves as such, we can stop seeking for someone, and we can dedicate time, to our life - to develop it, to realize who we are and where we’re going. In other words, to grow and to be alive. We must fill our life, and when we’re going into the relationship, we must bring this fullness with us.
The relationship
When we start the relationship, even if we came full into it, we very soon give our life to the other person, we often merge it too much. The good relationship is such, in which two persons living their own life, the dependence which is happening, should be only subtle, there shouldn’t be dependence which emotionally or physically prevents one to leave, at any given moment. From that perspective, we can understand relationship as friendship, and above all, that’s how relationship should be.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
— Kahlil Gibran
I don’t believe there’s one right person for which we should wait, or which we supposed to find. Once someone said to me: “in this big city, lives so many men, how can I ever find the right one?”, I believe, there’s not one right person among millions of wrong persons, - I believe there’s just a million chances.
To believe in one right person, is quite narrow minded and limiting, and above all it may become very frustrating, when we realize that the persons for which we believed it’s the right one, turns out to be wrong. We suffer, and we very wrongly believe, there won’t be another like he/she was.
What I really enjoy is not you; it’s something that’s greater than both you and me. It is something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m alone, it continues to play. There’s a great repertoire and it never ceases to play. — Anthony de Mello
From the same reason I don’t believe in marriage. Marriage is contract, and doesn’t offer anything, nor love, nor permanency. Nowadays it’s very easy to get divorce, so it’s not even any insurance that two will stay together, and most important, it’s not insurance that two will understand each other, and that they’ll be able to live together happily.
Him that I love, I wish to be free — even from me. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The relationship, is walking on some path together, and when that path split, both should go into their own way.
The life of person, the personal development and happiness, it’s more important than the relationship. The relationship should be tool, the helping to achieve mentioned things, but never obstacle. I don’t have in mind, that things should be perfect all the time, but I do believe that we all sense, very soon (not after years of suffering, but much sooner) that things doesn’t work anymore. In that case, our duty is to leave. To free ourselves, and to free the persons with which we’re in the relationship. — And if we love that person? — If we truly love that person, then we won’t even think about it, we’ll leave immediately.
How about trying to fix things first? — I believe in fixing and dialog, and when that’s possible, things aren’t so messy anyway. But sometimes (often), things can’t be solved with talking, in many cases we have monologue rather than dialog. The best thing in such case it leaving. Not hating, not threatening, just simply - leaving. Our life isn’t subjected to anyone, our life is too short to waste it on any drama, therefore, when we find ourselves in drama, we should escape it. We don’t have to run, but we do have to terminate it. Spend yeas for fixing something, that hardly ever worked, makes no sense at all. No matter good or bad, relationship is a chance to grow. Even if your relationship is totally messed, there’s still some message in it, something important to learn, maybe you need learn to leave, or learn to survive on your own.
Don’t see just the relationship, but above all, chance for something great, something above you and your partner, something - that brought you two together, even if into a bad relationship. But don’t insist for the sake of relationship, or because of the fear of being alone (or lonely), put that energy into the realization, into seeing what’s there to see.
Encounter
The tough day has finished. Everything I want to do now, is to lie down, to take a book and to read. I started to think about the content of it, can I comprehend it?
The sky is grey and the clock is showing almost three, it seems more though, seems like evening actually. Snowflakes are twirling in a soft but very cold wind, I like it, even though it’s very cold.
I’m at the parking place where only my car is parked, all around is emptiness. I think that’s strange, on another day and at the same time, this parking place would be totally full.
I drop those thoughts, as rage has arisen in me, because the car’s lock has failed again. Just in the moment, when my thoughts are the darkest, I see someone is approaching, and all the anger has melted away. I breath in and turn around, raise my head up to see the face of the person standing near me; it’s a girl, her face is pretty and so familiar, I know her but as usually I don’t know from where.
I recognize her in a moment, when she in question say my name. Actually, I more than just recognize her - the whole past, all moments we spent together flash in front of my eyes. I can’t understand why I haven’t recognized her at once.
“It’s seven years since that”, she just ended the summary of our last meeting, as we’re walking towards a Caffè. All the moments I spent with her, are now so alive in my mind, and I actually can’t believe so much time has passed.
The caffè is really nice, it’s warm and cosy and we’re almost alone in it. We’re sitting facing each other, and I can finally really look into her face. She has changed, but yet she’s the same. I realize that she has green eyes, and I wonder if I always knew that, or have I realized it just now.
I withdraw my look, and direct it through the window, where the passing car has just drawn a silhouette of an old man, which is hardly moving alone though the wind and snow. I look at her again, and now I see the smile on her face, the reason of which, I can’t explain to myself. After some moments her smile has faded away, I want to see it again so I try to smile, and I hope she’ll reflect it.
I have no idea how much time has passed, maybe an hour or two, or maybe even more? It’s completely dark outside. When I want to look through the window, I can see only clear reflection of myself and her in it. I try to understand the beauty of being, which is sitting in front of me. We were walking on similar paths, we were making similar decisions, and we believed and still do in similar things. We both see life through the same eyes: stars and mornings, snowflakes, warm tea, day dreaming, autumn leaves whirling in soft wind, fog colored by the light of the sunrise, life and love. All those magical things.
I’m not aware of time anymore, we’re outside now, the wind is blowing stronger, it has stopped snowing and the sky has cleared up. I don’t feel cold, as we’re standing in front of each other and saying goodbye. We’re looking into each others’ eyes, and we’re waiting for something to happen.
It was just couple of seconds maybe, though it seemed like an eternity.
Now I’m in the car, which stared moving slowly. In my thoughts it’s sill her last smile, and for a moment I feel like I’m not alone. The world starts to melt away, night lights, stars and the moon, they all merge into one, like they’d always be one.
