Friday 18 March 2016

What is in a flower...

"Each day is a credit to my knowledge bank" had been my status message for a while on one of social media sites.  It still is, I think, I am not sure. I am not much of a social media person.  In fact, come to think of it, I don’t even think I am much of a social person right now.  I seem to have a list of things I expect that are not lived up to by others.  I seem to be on this constant watch mode, where I am able to pick out stuff that no longer works with people.  And then I start wondering where it all starts to go wrong.

Take the case of this friend, for instance. We had been pretty close, or so I would like to think, till a couple of months back.  To be candid, I had figured in a large part of her life, and I felt wanted, needed.  One does not really start to count pennies, unless one is down to the last bit of it… In the same way, when I find the relationship wanting, I am going back and counting all the inputs that I had put in into the relationship, I find I am a pauper now. 

She just stopped talking… just like that.  She initially had practical reasons with work, visitors at home and the like, but then once all that settled down, it was still not on comfort level. An uneasy quiet so to speak.  My overtures at conversations were met with stilted answers.  That is when I started questioning the efficacy of the relationship and for once I did not question where I went wrong;   I was so tired of this question all the time.  I just gave up.  

I was not longer bothered about doing post-mortem.  I just gathered enough evidences to prove it has all been coming a while, only I was blind to it all and moved on.  But the shoulder felt a wee bit heavier…

Today was another friend’s birthday. She too has suddenly found a lot more to engage her in life, and there is suddenly empty space here.  She too cited work as a reason for the sudden disconnect and I took her at her word, though I did not feel listened to, I did not feel she understood what I meant when I said the connect was missing. And today, when I went to wish her, I took her some yellow roses.  Yellow roses are supposed to be a symbol of friendship.  I said so when I gave them to her.  And she left them back in the restaurant. Just like that.
   
Not that I am not busy.  Not that I don’t have other people in my life.  But I need all of them, and I would hate to be guilty of making one of them feel they don’t matter enough to me.  It is not a nice feeling.  And of late, I seem to be feeling that feeling a lot. In reverse…  That I don’t really matter much anymore.

The roses of course will wither and wilt away in a couple of days.  But what I felt when I discovered she had left them behind will take a long time to fade away I guess.  Unless amends are made sincerely, thoughtfully and deliberately.  I guess that is too much to ask. 

Once we enter into a relationship, we are no longer the same.  The relationship may end, but it does not cease to exist.  In some way or the other the dent is made and it is there for life.   Another friend of mine commented once about how I give all of myself and I expect the same and that is where I get hurt.  Maybe.  I am not sure.  But this is not about my giving more.  It is about how the other person no longer wants anymore…