Receive Life.

 

Picture Perfect a novel by Jodi Picoult, is the dance of abuse between a husband and a wife, both seem unable to wrestle themselves free of the relationship, or able to change the behavior.

 

Love gets twisted up in the middle, and during the happy times seems perfect, and during the dark times lost.

 

The juxtaposition between love and abuse and the way it can survive in the same relationship boggles the mind.

 

How is it possible to love and fear a person in one relationship and call it whole?

 

It is a stormy relationship at best, the contrast of two fronts hitting up against each other, the calm before the storm, or the wreckage after.

 

Is love mixed in or is it just the thoughts of love are easier to look at then the darkness of abuse?

 

Can you keep both, or does one ultimately win?

 

My relationship with my mother had the signs of an abusive relationship, there were times when I was in her favor, but I knew where the boundary lay, to easily fall out of her kindness.

 

It seemed I was the one controlling her depending upon how I acted she would either smile on in approval or huff off in silence withdrawing love in her wake.  I had the power to make her like/love me or hate/dislike me.  She had nothing to do with it, it was simply my behavior.

 

To me love was something tangible that the other carried, it was a thing like a tug-a-war rope that was held between to people.  The one with the most power always had more of the rope of love!

 

It wasn’t something inside of me, instead it was a conditional thing that was yanked back and forth.  Depending upon the mood of the other, you had more or less of the rope in your hand.

 

In the middle of my unravel, or maybe it was more in the first 6 months, my husband and I felt that yin and yang of that rope, the fleetingness it seemed to have.  I was forever sitting in a spot of change, changes so great that I was sure that that last change would break the rope called love.

 

So with the thread of love seemingly thin, our marriage was precariously balanced on, we began saying “I love you today”, it seemed the most honest, some days we literally did not know if the relationship between us would hold.

 

The honesty on both sides, the willingness to accept changes beyond what either of us foresaw, kept us in a state of influx, but real.

 

Once we separated our selves from the relationship, once our sense of self was removed, it was just a marriage relationship, and there we were two beings not knowing for sure if we matched!

 

We matched at one time, and now our life’s circumstances were so drastically changed, there was no way it couldn’t affect the individual as well as the relationship between us.

 

The space that opened up for each of us to be ourselves, to see just where it was we now were, the freedom to not have to match that old relationship, was to honor each of us as we were today, and without blame.

 

And I literally would not have blamed him, if he couldn’t have weathered the changes both inside of me as well as my new behaviors. 

 

We found ourselves in a spot of reintroducing ourselves, and once again relearning what the other likes or dislikes.  A new relationship was being born in the midst of the same two people.

 

Without a divorce or death, we were made to renegotiate the terms of our relationship.  The roles of husband and wife took a backseat to the role of self. 

 

A willing partner is key of course, and we both had to grieve our loss, acknowledging the old person could no longer be.

 

When one changes so drastically, the other has a choice to either go along and accept, or refuse.

 

Relationships should never overshadow the individuals within them.  The two separate individuals are the key factors of any relationship.

 

If one is weak, the relationship is weak, if one is lazy, the relationship is lazy, it takes two to tango, and the quality of dance depends on both people, one individual should not be made to carry the whole.

 

I have walked on both paths, and highly suggest not losing yourself in the relationship, but instead find one that fits you.

 

My laziest relationship was with myself.

I allowed others to control me.

I let them have the switch for my behaviors and feelings.

 

I love that I am now riding along with my hand on the switch!

 

Can you have a lazy relationship with life?

Can we just sit back and let life decide just how we will feel and behave?

 

That seems unfair to life that IT has to carry us.

 

I want to dance with life, be a full participant and carry my part.

 

What is my part of life?

 

I think my part is to receive life.