Click

[cathschaffstump]

Recently, there are two of my relationships that have solidified into something good. In both instances, the people involved seemed to have made a choice, that I was their friend now, and that they wanted to treat me differently than they have in the past. There is an active pursuit of friendship that I find very pleasant, and I do my best to reciprocate.

Both of these relationships were very good in the past, but both of them were much more casual. And then, for whatever reasons, click! a decision was made and I am reaping the benefits of that decision. One person indicated the shift by event; the other by announcement of intent. Very cool. Every time someone decides I am worth getting to know better, I am grateful.

There are also relationships where things work the other way. I'm not talking about a relationship where both parties have made mistakes and engaged in confrontation. Those decisions change the relationship fundamentally, and things often don't go back to the way they were. Nor should they, nor can they.

The negative click seems to be when someone makes a decision to distance themselves from you. Of course there's no formal announcement. But you notice. Sometimes it takes you some time to notice. That's a little more difficult, because you wonder what the problem is, if you can fix it, and why it happened.

Eventually, you come to the place where you realize that this isn't about you, and it isn't about them. It's about chemistry and decisions. Your style isn't for everyone, and frankness isn't always the best policy. A couple of years ago I let someone go under what appeared to be fairly mysterious circumstances. I made it clear to the person that I was going. The issue was that she had done something I found morally questionable, and I couldn't ignore it. My problem, not hers. But did she really need to hear my baggage? Not so much, especially as I was on the way out. There was no way we could reconcile the experience. It wasn't a compromise scenario.

Click.

There are those moments I can see those clicks in others about me. I can never know why. I can't worry about why. If no one is interested enough to tell you, no remedy is possibly.

Fate is both sweet and bittersweet. We not only choose others, but they must choose us as well. And when things are one-sided, they hearken back to those junior high crushes. Of course, we are older now, and we have been around the block a little more, and we understand these things a little better. This, then, is the beauty and the sadness of experience.

And I write about it to mark the occasion of the beginning of two things, and the realization of the end of one. Life is like a stream. You never stand in the same stream twice.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.