girl-aflame's Diaryland Diary

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The Truth Of Reciprocity

It's about time I reciprocated all the free publicity tech-noir has been giving me. He's awesome, btw.

"Just reflecting on my last relationship. I did leave, after all. In trying times, for the both of us. I've questioned myself more times than I care to remember...

Should I have stuck with it? Should I have weathered the storm? �It� might not have been forever. And there should be no doubt in anyone's mind the depth of feelings I had for her. I'd like to think it was love.

Its not as if I just upped and left on her at the first cloud on the horizon. Like all relationships, we had our ups and downs. Given our intensity (we both have somewhat hedonistic / addictive personalities) those were very jagged peaks and troughs.

Its just that, after a while, I got worn down by it all. Those waves just crashing against me, pounding away at my will. The love never died, not even the day I walked out that door for the last time. Just my ability to cope, and live with it.

There were other, sharper, reasons for my walking of course. Had there been a palpable love between us, I think I would have stayed. Those feelings forgave much, and galvanised me to endure even more. However, it also moulded me into something other than what I had been. Better in some ways, worse in others."

I've been on both sides of that fence - I've been the "worn down" one too, mentally exhausted and probably would have ended up dead if I had stuck around in the relationship. So, to do the best for me and the best for her (this was a best friend, not a lover), I left. But I came back when I had learned what I needed to, when I knew how to ration my strength, I came back because I loved her dearly, and I never stopped loving her for a minute. I figured out that I have to keep my strength for me, so I can help her find her own strength. If you give your strength away to people, no one gets anything out of it because not only are you drained, but your strength flows through them like water; it has no lasting effect for them. For people to really manage their own lives, they have to learn to be strong for themselves; each person in the relationship has to have their own inner strength. What the relationship is about is combining those inner strengths to make one fused life force. It's a mutual sharing, not a one direction give and take. That'll kill you every time - and there's no use hanging on in a situation like that one until you learn that there's got to be some reciprocity.

Btw, Tech, you don't freak me out in the slightest.

7:03 p.m. - Sunday, Aug. 03, 2003

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