Relationships
Pictured above: Myself with some of my closest friends at the 2018 Melbourne Cup.
Hello, reader. Before we start, I want to clarify a few things. I do not claim to be a relationship guru, nor have I spent nearly enough time as I should have studying them in any way for me to be a qualified professional. However, I think I am allowed an opinion of some sorts, so bear with me.
Relationships are weird. Whether we intend to or not, we form new relationships with people every day. Be it another one of those transactions as an acquaintance with the check out lady at your local supermarket or a taking a compliment from a complete stranger on public transport one day, even exchanging comments with randoms online can constitute as forming a relationship to some degree. But today I want to touch on the more personal relationships we have in our lives, the company we choose to keep with us.
To give a bit of a background of myself, I grew up with a closer relationship with my friends than with my own family. As most of the current citizens of the VC may already know, my relationship with my parents, is not the best. They were barely around growing up and I spent a lot of my time over the many weekends, birthdays and even special holidays with friends and neighbors who basically became my family. Which is probably why I find it a lot easier making new friends than I do with seeing family members I haven’t seen in a long time.
‘There is a saying; “distance makes the heart grow fonder”, to which I agree to a certain degree. It is from my experience that distance also makes the heart grow stupid and desperate.'
Recently, there have been a number of relationship shakeups among the people of this great nation, all of which causing heartbreak in one way or another. And though they are all different in nature, I believe that they will each allow the perspective parties to grow in different ways; some closer together, some further apart. Whatever happens, I am damn proud of those friends who are taking the leap into relationship commitments as young adults in the modern world as we all know how challenging they can be.
And to those friends in my life that I have allowed to be more distant than I would prefer, I say this. However rarely I see you in person, or however sparsely we speak online does not change how I cherish our friendship even more with each day that passes. Thank you for moulding me into the person I am today and I apologize if I have made you feel like I have taken our friendship for granted in the past. I am in the process of attempting to rectify that behaviour, but please bear with me as I learn to grow.
Relationships are meant to be tricky, messy, and the complete opposite of easy to upkeep. But if I may, given the right amount of care and effort, I think our relationships with people, no matter how short or long, can help us grow and change as people until hopefully we can be satisfied with the relationships we choose to keep in our lives. Cherish what you have in the moment, memento mori, and don’t look back to the past behind you as it can only hold you back from the future ahead.
The future holds more for you than you currently realize. Thank you for reading.
Dum spiro spero. Esse quam Videri.