It Works Both Ways

Life is a quick mover. It doesn’t wait for anyone if they decide to sit back and let it float away. We all know that we should cherish the people in our lives, as well as try to make a difference in others. There are so many cliches and platitudes to “life” itself, that it eventually gets drowned up at the bottom of a huge bowl full of preoccupied self-absorbencies. (And I don’t mean that in a bad way.) It’s normal - we get caught up in our own lives, sometimes neglecting very important people that we need to spend more time with. Between having demanding jobs, raising children, relationships, marriages or making home improvements or whatever it is making you too busy, sometimes people misinterpret “busyness” with “neglectfulness”. Whether you want to intermingle the two together or not is up to you.

I have a few friends I used to hang out with all the time. When they would get into a new relationship, I wouldn't ever hear from them. Once the relationship had ended, it was back to status quo. See, I totally understand about new relationships and the work that goes into it. I know how it is when you’re focusing on a new person. I’ve done it before, but not to the point of totally losing your friends. I have had my friends come back to me after a breakup wanting our friendship to go back to the same ol’ same ol’, and of course I took them back because I love them. Question is: how do you know if your friend truly likes you for “you” and not using you as a time filler? For me, and the way I see things -if I truly like someone as a friend, it doesn’t matter if we haven't talked for five months or for a year or two, they’re welcomed back into my life as if no time has passed at all. That’s how it should be with friends and family, in my opinion. I also think that sharing your time with both your significant other and friends + family are very important as well. I’m just saying I would never get upset over a friend who got a little caught up in the fiery romance of a blooming relationship. So be it.

There is one thing that bothers me a lot about how people handle other people’s “busyness”. I had a few people in my tell me, “Well I have kids so it’s harder.” (Some of these people are talking about their older kids who are in their 20’s now.) Anyway, my point is: how can you compare your life to someone else’s? Of course having “kids” and I mean, “small children”, is definitely a handful, but to assume that your life is any harder than the next person’s life isn’t fair. My partner and I both have siblings (on both sides of the family) that expect us to go to every single event held. Granted, we have gone to some of them, but it would have been nice to see these very same people present on our wedding day, or at least, give a card saying congratulations. But, their lives seem much more "important" and much more “busier” than ours. We never say anything about it, but when these people complain and yell at us over a birthday party or an event not attended to, we want to remind them: “Hey, you haven’t visited us in over two years. You haven’t seen our new home. You weren’t at our wedding. You weren’t there for any of it.” But, the fact remains that we’ll always be in the wrong because we don’t have children, therefore our lives are insignificant.

This is exactly the reason why I love the whole concept of, ‘when I see you I will appreciate every moment with you’. There is no guilt thrown in anyone’s face, no life comparisons made and no judgmental accusations about anything. Since we know life is busy for all of us, why is it so hard to adapt to the idea of having a bit more understanding, instead of lashing out in a deep-seated fury? Life’s not enjoyable if you have to visit people just because you were given a huge guilt trip or two. It makes the entire visit not as genuine as it should be. It shouldn’t matter if I visit you or you visit me - it should just be at ease with a constant flow of communication on both parts. If you complain to the people you care for about why they don’t visit you often, take a look at your own efforts to do so yourself.
It works both ways.