| RELATIONSHIPS - YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM In conversation with my friend day before yesterday, I realised how much the normal adolescent's life is stuff-centered and friend-centered. How important are your friends to you? Does your entire life circle about them? Are you constantly fighting with yourself to keep your commitments? How much time does it take to find them a suitable gift on their birthday.... worse, how dreadful do you feel when YOU forget their birthday? What would happen if one of them had to leave you of if you had to leave ALL of them? Everybody speaks of undying love for one's friends and everybody makes statements like "I will always stand by you, even if the earth stops revolving 'round the sun and the laws of gravity are defied!" or some of the more popular ones, "No matter what, we will always be together, forever!" or on Friendship's Day,"Please wear my band and we'll be friends forever". You say them when you do and you probably are extremely certain and sure of what you are saying then. But, forever is a long time, circumstances change, people change and when the need arises, you do leave your friends, no matter how much you hate to do so or are reluctant to do so. And then, you spend most of your time grumbling about it. Relationships are like leaves. When autumn arrives, they have to fade. They can't remain evergreen. They turn to beautiful yellow and orange shades.Some appreciate these lovely colours for what they are. They dance in the heap of leaves and feel merry for what they were. Others....... fret over them. They don't want to accept the change. The barren trees frighten them. They are scared to go out and hope for spring. They sit hunched and mourn in the heat of autumn. You can either cry over relationships past and lost or you can give a toast to the yester years, appreciate those relationships for what they were and feel blessed with having been a part of them. Life goes on. Up comes Spring again with all its beautiful pastels and all the....HOPE. People come, people go. We are all, but mortal. You build a glass house of relationships. A stone has the capacity to break that precious glasshouse. Malek. |