carlos took the road gig, and he saw it through
relationships define us, and we define them. so... who are we when our relationships are changing? and what comes of them when we are?
i hear all the time about people who "can't get over" so-and-so, or how so-and-so is "living in the past"... but i find any conversation about other people's relationships to be glib; while it may be easy to admit that relationships are always-changing things, that's a terribly hard thing to reconcile when it's clear your relationships are changing in big ways, because that means you will be too, and that nobody knows what's to come next.
in a given moment, or at a given period in time, relationships tell us a lot about who we are, and major changes mean major uncertainty not only for the future, but for every moment leading up to it.
example: two or three years ago i was very different. and though a lot that has changed since then has been changed by design, there are things about that girl i used to be, and about her relationships, that i find myself missing terribly, in ways i have trouble even articulating. there were many things that i considered positive about that two-years-ago version of myself that i never meant to leave behind, but by changing dynamics within some of my relationships, i inadvertently did.
two years ago, i was spending most of my time with folks i'd describe as naturally good-humored and easy-going. i remember joking and laughing a lot, and a general feeling of comfort with my day-to-day life. but i also felt out of place. this year i started spending more and more time with folks who had hobbies and interests more similar to my own, which aren't necessarily common (more on that in a future post).
i'm not going to lie: i'm one of those people who has felt out of place just about every place i've ever been, including in my relationships. very rarely have i felt 100% at home someplace or with someone. and while that hasn't changed with my relationships, my understanding of "relationship" has:
however imperfect they've ever been, my relationships have always grounded me to my sense of who i am. when they've changed, i have, too. so, when i recently began to notice that life had become very serious -- very riddled with analysis -- i found myself missing the every-day presence of the people who seemed to make a light-hearted perspective more possible for me -- the people who forced me out of my uber-serious comfort zone and into a zone that's so much more level-headed, really: one filled with every-day joy.
don't get me wrong; it's not that those people are gone. their roles have just changed i my life. and it's not that a rebalancing isn't possible; it is -- both for the rediscovery of light-heartedness within myself and for the care required for those relationships where that joyfulness came more effortlessly.
the main thing to understand is that all of the struggles with relationship must have something to do with karma, telling us as they do, in real time, exactly who we are, what we lack, what we offer in abundance, and most importantly, offering us chances to grow along with feedback on how we're doing.
but more than that, for me, the questions above beg an honest inquiry: how much is too much when it comes to grounding oneself to one's relationships? because when all is said and done, no matter what karma is in play, a given capacity in oneself should not be dependent on the geographic or emotional proximity of certain other human beings.
as of this moment, there's only a few things i know about relationships and what they have to do with who i am: my relationships live and breathe, just like me, and changing definitions and dynamics in my relationships are inevitable.
oh, and this: it's a damn lucky thing that the folks i know, believe in courage, because that's what facing change is really about.
spotify soundtrack: what relationship post is complete without james mcmurtry's ruby and carlos?