The morning is ending and I’ve just opened my eyes. I stare across the room as I lie snug against the warmth of my partner, remembering the night before. So here I am, thousands of miles away from the land ‘down under’ where instead of a cosy log fire now, there would be sizzling barbecue!
For once I see the birth of a new year without a creaming hangover. There is something to be said about the ‘feel good factor’ or was it simply remnants from the night before. Whatever the reason, it was an evening with close friends, the family I’ve chosen rather than the one I was born into.
We sat around the table and instead of declaring our new year’s resolution, we decided to each focus instead on one person specifically and on what, we individually considered was a significant achievement in their personal lives from the previous year. It made sense. To many of us, recognition, understanding and love are principal scenarios that bring deep responses within. We tend to shy away from declaring what we truly feel and are uneasy about intimacy.
As I looked across the table at my husband and friends, it occurred to me that we mark the years not by our resolutions so much as with people with whom we are able to share them with. Acceptance for many of us is an interactive process. The very structures through which we think, the very meanings and values attached to these same social and cultural structures are all determined by how we engage with them. I would rather be happy with whoever and whatever there is to share and experience than none at all. For what is the sacrifice if friendship grows? What is embraced if love fills the void.
Thinking back, I had been solitary and single for quite some time before a certain person turned up in my life. It was a self that I was often reticent in exposing. I had learnt to live within my own solitude; the loneliness and vulnerability were deep-seated yet strangely sustaining. There, things could not possibly get worse, and I did not have to risk getting hurt. It is possible to skim the surface of life without being profoundly touched by anything; but it is not very rewarding. Those who close themselves off from pain, must also sacrifice opportunities to feeling the piercing sense of joy.
It seems to me. The most important thing in surrendering to a close bond, is sacrificing to the relationship without sacrificing the love. If love is an opening out like a blossom that can no longer be kept closed, then everything and anyone we love is an opening. When those very uncertainties and insecurities are accepted, I believe love abides somehow. The most profound relationships in our lives, whatever their outcome, provide certain perspectives on what it is to love. The wealth that is gained, is for me, the wealth that really means anything in the end.