Our expectations for our own life are sometimes changed by our circumstances. This was 
highlighted in a dinner conversation with friends last night. It appeared that after suffering some personal setbacks, one of my friends felt that his focus should change from ‘wanting a gratifying relationship with a partner’ to settling for a complacent relationship with friends and the occasional passing ‘good time’. To be clear, I have no judgments with regard to how folks meet and the nature of their relationships, but was somewhat disappointed to think that someone with so much to offer had relegated themselves to a life behind a figurative wall – protected from the pains and disappointments that can arise from relationships that fail to satisfy or fulfill us. When I tried to interject that there is NO age where love and its entanglements cease to be an option, they interjected that their life’s circumstances had made it clear that they would never receive the love they so willingly share with their partners. Admittedly, I once was where my friend is. It’s a place of despair and disillusion; when we have shared of ourselves only to have that love taken for granted and mishandled. The opening theme song to the sitcom Alice has a line that says, “I’m going through the world with blinders on, it’s hard to see…” My truth is that my expectations cannot be trumped or stifled by my circumstances. Had I closed myself off from the world and relegated my future interactions to mere friends and casual trysts, I may have missed out on the most amazing man I’ve met to date – BD. …but alas, this isn’t about me. It’s about my friend. You see, your expectations of life shouldn’t be side-tracked, but enhanced by your circumstances. I can now see that my previous relationships served as the sandpaper to smooth-out my rough edges and make me a more experienced and realistic partner to my soul mate. Life’s circumstances can be hard and suffering a broken heart at the hands of folk’s too irresponsible to treat our hearts and souls with respect can render us numb to the reality that we are NEVER too old to meet the partner of our dreams and that our expectations are realized when we are active participants in seeing possibility in all of our interactions. I’m not a subscriber to losing hope or permanently changing my expectations to fit a temporary setback. My expectation is that my friends will work through their pain to see that there is a lid for every pot and their expectations for a reciprocal and loving relationship is always on the foreseeable horizon.
Keep passin’ the open windows…
highlighted in a dinner conversation with friends last night. It appeared that after suffering some personal setbacks, one of my friends felt that his focus should change from ‘wanting a gratifying relationship with a partner’ to settling for a complacent relationship with friends and the occasional passing ‘good time’. To be clear, I have no judgments with regard to how folks meet and the nature of their relationships, but was somewhat disappointed to think that someone with so much to offer had relegated themselves to a life behind a figurative wall – protected from the pains and disappointments that can arise from relationships that fail to satisfy or fulfill us. When I tried to interject that there is NO age where love and its entanglements cease to be an option, they interjected that their life’s circumstances had made it clear that they would never receive the love they so willingly share with their partners. Admittedly, I once was where my friend is. It’s a place of despair and disillusion; when we have shared of ourselves only to have that love taken for granted and mishandled. The opening theme song to the sitcom Alice has a line that says, “I’m going through the world with blinders on, it’s hard to see…” My truth is that my expectations cannot be trumped or stifled by my circumstances. Had I closed myself off from the world and relegated my future interactions to mere friends and casual trysts, I may have missed out on the most amazing man I’ve met to date – BD. …but alas, this isn’t about me. It’s about my friend. You see, your expectations of life shouldn’t be side-tracked, but enhanced by your circumstances. I can now see that my previous relationships served as the sandpaper to smooth-out my rough edges and make me a more experienced and realistic partner to my soul mate. Life’s circumstances can be hard and suffering a broken heart at the hands of folk’s too irresponsible to treat our hearts and souls with respect can render us numb to the reality that we are NEVER too old to meet the partner of our dreams and that our expectations are realized when we are active participants in seeing possibility in all of our interactions. I’m not a subscriber to losing hope or permanently changing my expectations to fit a temporary setback. My expectation is that my friends will work through their pain to see that there is a lid for every pot and their expectations for a reciprocal and loving relationship is always on the foreseeable horizon.Keep passin’ the open windows…
No comments:
Post a Comment