This started as a post in the get to know a negro better thread, but I ended up typing so much I figured I might as well give it it’s own topic. Perhaps I will sit and let more diet-Apoc madness to flow from my fingers soon. I’m in a state of dramatic change in my life and here is a product of the biggest step thus far. I lay down at 5am to start a journal and at one point had this cosmic punch in the face and had to type words somewhere.
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If you start a relationship before you are truly ready, it creates a ripple in your pond, so to speak.
If you don’t acknowledge said ripple, there are consequences.
You think the pond is still and you build a house of cards right on the edge of the water. The longer you take to acknowledge the ripple, the higher and more complex your house of cards becomes. If you see it in time you can make a simple barrier. By this widened perspective; stepping back and looking at the pond in it’s entirety, you can also realize that you didn’t have the correct scope of things when you created the base to your house of cards. You can reinforce the bottom cards with clay and sticks. Mere ripples are no worry because you’ve been there. You’ve seen what that experience has to offer and appropriately dealt with it.
That’s the best way I can analogize my most recent soul searching revelation. Take a step back and look at your pond(s). This could apply to a romantic or otherwise relationship. In my case, I saw the ripple with very little time to spare. So, rather than clinging like barnacles on the boat, I jumped and abandoned ship - fuck going down with the vessel (try not to get that attached to anything in life).
I offered my hand to the other in my relationship with two choices, jump with me/ go down with the ship. Either way I’m going. The fall might hurt too much (the jump was the hardest part, though) and it’ll be over for our tiny proverbial cardhouse-inhabiting people, or we might just tuck and roll. We’ll learn from our experience and build further away from the water, build the base wider - whatever it is it’ll be an improvement. Positive change.
Positive change is an important thing in a human being’s life and in relationships. Relationships are enjoyable because they are constantly growing, but if you built the base of your card house in a bad location, it can only grow so much before it’s inevitable destruction. It could be some other environmental event (of whatever proportion), but my point is pay attention to the environment, not just what you’re building there.
In my case, I was mesmerized with my creation. My card house (my first romantic relationship) was a beautiful thing, I couldn’t look away. Ankle deep in the pond, building and admiring. Staring in one direction, not realizing that life is a 360. It finally hit me just in time that I had not taken a break from the building. Sit on the bench and take a load off.
I guess I assumed the person on the other side of the card house could see what was behind me, not realizing that what’s behind me is where I’m coming from. Anyone you have a relationship with is coming from their own direction, with their own unique perspective of the environment. You can tell said person about your path, but they have not been there. It’s up to you to make sure everything went smoothly along the way.
I realized there were things in the past in my relationship that I hadn’t resolved, and a lot of communication issues. I very eagerly dove into this pond of a relationship at age 18, without thinking about the cause and effect of jumping into a body of water. My exhilarating jump from this card house is a perspective I did not expect to see, so I wanted to share it.
Make sure you are prepared for what’s going on in your environment. I had issues that I could never truly communicate my feelings on, and being touchy subjects in the relationship, I didn’t want to keep bringing them up. Communication is the blood of a relationship. Take a look around and make sure you have properly observed your environment in whatever relationship. Don’t disillusion yourself into thinking that if you don’t look, it’s not there. There is more to the view than your one perspective at any given time.
This is coming from a person with social anxiety and communication issues (which I officially recognize and am working on :tup:), but conflict is never as bad as you conceptualize it to be. Had I not worried about building my card house so hastily, I could’ve seen the ripple for what it was and dealt with it.
The longer you wait, the more your half of the conflict and your mentally projected other half of the conflict are fighting in your head. You can’t battle with yourself and win, the conflict is already there and it’s not going away. You either fight this endless battle in your head where everybody loses, or you throw your half of the conflict out there, and find out that you really had no right assuming you knew how the other half would be because you can only create your own conflict.
There’s plenty of other aspects of life that cause us to create conflict within ourselves, why add relationships to the list? If you have anything unresolved you need to say to someone, just do it. Whatever reason you haven’t done it yet is stupid, guaranteed. :china:
