Boundaries and Beginnings

I spoke to two of my dearest friends yesterday, and am just realizing over breakfast how perfectly those conversations fit together.

The first, about building boundaries in a relationship to indulge that piece inside of us that needs to hold control, or at least a sense of it. About knowing our limits with someone that we may be treading water with, to know how far we will let ourselves follow them to the deep end before we have the sense to realize we are up against someone that doesn't want to be "saved" by love.

Perhaps a lesson anyone can learn from, but I know how many times I've jumped right in the deep end to risk it all for someone I love. It's an exhausting process and it's one that we, or perhaps more appropriately, I don't even realize I'm doing.

 Love challenges all of our boundaries, and it has a crazy way of making us forget that some times, we can't be the hero. Sometimes, love doesn't win. But the more this lesson is learned, I think it becomes... less difficult to realize that it doesn't mean love loses either. It's kind of like t-ball when we were little. Every game was a tie, no matter what team really won. There were no expectations or needs, strategies or tricks; both sides were just in to play.

So you've saved yourself from the deep end, or you've walked away with another tie; breathe in not an end, but a new beginning.

My friend asked me last night how I keep relationship issues from creeping into every other part of my life. He explained that he struggles to be happy with out his girlfriend in everything in his life, mood in general.

I told him that he can't let himself be defined by a relationship. They are meant to be extensions of ourselves, and sometimes we get attached from the enjoyment and perhaps distraction of them when other aspects of our life may not be so fulfilling.

But, at the end of it all, you are still you. You were you when you lost the last one, and you were you when you met the new one. Maybe one added something to your life, where the other may have taken something away.

We are a crazy compilation of our life experiences, and the people that we meet along the way. But in the end, it's all a choice of who we want to be, and who we want to share that with.

I tried to remind him that a break-up is temporary pain. I told him his bad lows are undeniably bad, but it doesn't compare to the reality of accepting that you will never see someone again.

It makes a break up seem a little more bearable. Not because I'm heartless, or don't care, but because I have that perspective on life.

Don't set boundaries to keep love out. Set boundaries to take care of yourself first. And not to be overly optimistic, but instead of seeing endings, why don't we try calling them new beginnings.


**thanks for the inspiration :)