Last week I spent a lot of time talking to my best friend of more than 10 years and on this particular drive, we were pondering on human relationships. At a busy U-turn, both of us agreed on how all relationships are hard to “maintain” as we grow older. With countless hours at the office emailing, studying, commuting, organizing our cupboards, tallying our savings accounts, mending the evergreen lower back pain, and hashtagging on Instagram, we often forget to “tend to” our friends, siblings, partners or parents.
I am guilty of it. I have not answered calls, I have not been there for people when they needed me. And shamelessly, I have justified it every time by saying I was busy at work or I was in my shell, blah, meh, blah and sometimes never gave an answer too. Until one day, my very wise younger sister uttered, “We just can’t keep people who love us away just because they understand.” I need such nudgings in my stupid brain to come back on track.
People ‘understand’ because they love us unabashedly and they value the relationships built over time, effort and trust. Such people are few in number. So if you have these people in your life, just hold on to them?
As human beings navigating this unknown, unpredictable terrain called “life”, we seek love, attention and safety nets in people. Doesn’t your tummy flutter when people see and accept you for who you are, when people hold you close? We, the homo-sapiens build friendships, and get into relationships for this ; for the love, for security and for the familiarity. However, this familiarity over time can become an unseen villain. The comfort born out of this familiarity makes it look like these bonds run on autopilot and you don’t need to DO anything. I understand that such beliefs stems out of reason too. For example, We don’t say “I love you” to our care givers every day and irrespective of our nasty behaviour on certain days, this bond seem effortless.
We, come from a culture that do not “show or profess or do over the top things” in love, hence come to “think” that relationships in general can run seamlessly irrespective.
But in reality, people need reassurance and relationships need effort.
Like your car, your relationship also requires consistent fueling, air, engine and wiper check-ins.
There is no person on earth who wouldn’t like to be told or shown that they are infact someone’s centre of the world. Your caregivers wouldn’t dislike it if you show up for them even for five minutes in your busy work schedule, Your friends wouldn’t dislike it if you tell them that “I am here”, Your partners wouldn’t dislike it if you give them your shoulder to lean on.
I am re-learning how to MAINTAIN loving relationships.
If you are with me here,
Let us put our intention to actions
Let us put our intention to words
Let us make a concoction of actions and words when needed,
Because all of us are going to perish one day and you don’t want YOUR PEOPLE guessing whether you loved them or not
And if you struggle with this, let me help you with different love languages
‘This song reminded me of you”
“ I had a yum chocolate cake the other day, let me take you there”
“Take your time, I am here always”
“I got the appointment for you since you were busy”
“I exactly don’t understand what you are going through, but you can count me in with you in this”
“Drink water, please” “Do you need more sleep?”
“Drive safe” “Text me once you reach”
“Let me get you some chai”
and countless others.
Treat your loved ones like flowers. Give them the pickle of attention, efforts and words of affirmations and see them bloom. All of us struggle in this journey, as we are not taught these. So we falter, let’s pick up too.
But, learn it okay?
My kyoodies,
I hope that you GIVE and receive love and a lot of it
because, breathing, navigating and healing this life with love is so, so, so much better than otherwise.
Today, I feel like sending you these gems:
your sore muscle is going to love this
Till I see you next Tuesday,
Tataaaaa
Love,
Aachieo.
Thankyou ma'am for the reminder, Specially cuz in our age we forget to appreciate and love the little things around us.😊 On that note, though I never said it but I love you ma'am...💕
💕💕💕I agree with this Aachie-ving. It is certainly a weird concotion. However, sometimes, it feels heavy at heart too to communicate with others. Self doubts, if people ever needed us when not a single message flings our way because they seem to be busy. Our messages condense into single emojis, the long convos back in the time fading into story reactions when our success is posted on instagram or watsapp, and the sad posts remain sad😂. It feels heavy to put an effort to send or recieve a word of love. Different case in the same curious world😜. This Tuesday post is a much needed one to nudge us out of our shell of claiming "busy bringing my mental state to stability" EVERYDAY. Keep coming with more like this beautiful🤗