For a good portion of my life, I've been convinced that I am incapable of an actual long-term relationship. Prior to meeting my current boyfriend (with whom I am celebrating over a year), my previous seven attempts at relationships had ended quite unceremoniously, a couple after almost a year or more, but most after as little as two months. I'd become great friends with someone only to have a falling-out with them some months down the road and end the friendship; I'd get all excited about a new contract assignment, only to burn out in a matter of months and lose my interest in the job. There were times when I honestly thought I wasn't someone who could handle long-term anything; my life was doomed to be in constant flux.
This evening, while washing my dishes, I began meditating on this issue, and on the recent and somewhat dramatic end of two friendships that had proven particularly draining, and I realized something: I had owned the plate I was washing for three years. And it was given to me by my best friend, who I dated for a year and a half, but have been friends with for almost five years.
As I looked around the house, I noticed other long-owned things among my dishes: the beanpot I bought when I was 19 (my single oldest bit of cookware); the chef's knives and frying pans given to me by another dear friend three years ago (who, by the way, I've been friends with for four years); the corningware gratin dishes that I got while I was in my second apartment (I was about 21 then); the coffee mugs and bread machine my best friend gave me two years ago; the copy of Charlotte's Web I got from my uncle when I was five.
And I started to realize, as I looked at all of this stuff I'd owned for years, that I actually have quite a few long-term relationships in my life at the moment. I have friends I've known for years now, and although we don't see each other every single day, I know that we can count on each other when one of us is in need. And while many things have come and gone in my life, everything that I've lost or given up has been something that was no longer good for me—the toxic roommate situation, the commute that was sucking me dry, the fair-weather friends and the relationships that were never a good fit. The things that have stuck around are the things that make me happy—the bean pot, certain friends, fond memories. So maybe I am capable of long-term relationships after all—I just can't seem to hold on to things that are no longer serving me.
I like that a lot better.
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Comments: 8
I have gone through a lot of friends in my life. A small few are still around. But I've grown and changed and a lot of the people I used to hang with are just on different paths now. Some of them were toxic and needed to be weeded out. Others...well, we're just different now. If you are growing and changing a lot in your life then you will often need new people to come in and support the new and better you.
I know what you mean. I seem to change dramatically every five years or so, and inevitably a few of the friends I had been hanging out with during the previous years end up "dropping off the plate," so to speak. I always got a bit sad about it, and thought there was something wrong with me. I think I'm learning that, in most cases, the drop-off is nobody's fault really; and in others, they were indeed toxic, and it was time for me to accept that and move on.
A very good musing, Dani.