Relationships

It hurts when the people you love hit a rough patch and the road ahead seems to be fraught with disaster. It's painful when you have to be the one to try and make things clear. Even harder when the people involved are close to your heart.

Relationships are meant to be serious. While a younger person might not be able to reconcile with that fact, citing the need to maintain independence for themselves, it's unfair for the other party in the relationship. Where do the boundaries start and end? What happens when long term goals conflict with short term ones?

Freedom versus commitment. Weighing the pros and cons of being in a relationship is hard enough, making the decision to continue or end a relationship is even harder. All relationships have obstacles, and it is up to those people in that relationship to decide on the outcome. It's easy enough to cite in theory but the reality is all too hard. It's never easy telling it like it is. People too close to the relationship can't see it the way an impartial observer does.

It's amazing how much pain being in love can bring. How raw one can feel when the emotional connection is severed or not returned. The rollercoaster of being up or down in tandem with the relationship. And yet my life is so much more richer for the experience, for the tears I've cried and for the smiles I've shared. Shakespeare said it right when he said "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."

Well, that's life for you. And as far as my personal relationships go, I'm leaving in God's hands. By the way, Brian and Nat, remember our pact! ;)