BENGALURU: The wish for the happily ever after, eternally bonded relationship notwithstanding, the reality of relationships is that sometimes, relationships will expire. The glorification of the long-lasting relationship being what it is, we often find that relationships that end are often vilified. It need not be the case at all.
Not every relationship that ends was a mistake to begin with. Some relationships are for a season, others for a reason, as the saying goes. There are beautiful relationships that cannot last forever just because of other priorities in life, or extenuating circumstances. We meet some people at vulnerable times in our lives, and might start something though we don’t really have the space for such a relationship in the long run. There may be friends with whom things spark but we may not really have what it takes to make a long-term relationship of it.
In many such situations, these relationships naturally come to an end, and yet, we may not want to really move on from it altogether, and hold on to something. We end up asking ourselves, or even each other – Can we be friends? Can we be something more, or something less? Can we find some way to hold on to each other in some capacity for much longer?
There may be no hard feelings, maybe even a wistfulness – a feeling of the right person, right place, wrong time, or some other permutation of right and wrong with respect to person, time and space. In that sense, love is truly a multi-dimensional miracle for which many things have to coincide across space and time for things to work. The miracle that needs to happen for feelings of love to happen is exactly what makes us long for it. We find it hard to let go, to move away.
We seek to stay connected - maybe from a wishful place that if we stayed connected, perhaps in some time, it might become the right time, or if we could just take some effort, maybe we might end up at the right place together. We do not easily give up. Few goodbyes that we say are really goodbyes in that sense – we say, ‘see you around’ or even make some sort of tentative date hanging in the air for a distant future that may never come.
For a few, some sort of alchemy does occur and a relationship magically transforms into a friendship or a special bond where feelings exist without needing a relationship. They can care for each other, watch and rejoice as each falls in love with others and things happen in their lives, stay connected through it all, with lots of love and regard for each other without necessarily needing more. That is rare though. It takes a great deal of self-awareness and the ability to finely tune ourselves. For most of us, it just feels safer to let go fully, and move on and away from each other – not even the wish of a nostalgic reunion years away.
And that’s ok.