Daily writing
EVERY RELATIONSHIP CAN BECOME A DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP
We tend to think a relationship is a fixed thing.
This is my relationship with my mother.
This is my marriage.
This is how my brother is.
This is what happens when she and I are together.
But a relationship is not a thing.
It's something that's happening.
And you're happening inside it.
Every time you meet another person, you arrive carrying an expectation of who they are.
You remember what they said.
What they failed to say.
The way they disappointed you.
The thing they always do.
And without realizing it, you begin looking for them to become the person you already know them to be.
Of course, the nervous system loves this!
Prediction is one of its great talents.
It uses the past to anticipate what comes next. And once it has a model of someone, attention begins collecting evidence for the model.
So we can enter a room with someone we have known for twenty years,
and barely meet the person who is standing there today.
Instead, we meet our history of them.
But there is another possibility.
Before the next conversation, ask yourself:
What am I willing to notice this time?
Not:
How can I make them different?
Not:
How can I convince myself that what hurt me didn’t hurt?
Not even:
How can I have a better relationship?
Something smaller.
What am I willing to notice?
The moment they soften.
The thing you still admire.
The joke that still makes you laugh.
The tenderness hidden underneath the awkwardness.
The way they are trying.
The place where the two of you still meet.
And if none of those things are there, notice that too.
Wholeness doesn’t require us to manufacture beauty where there isn’t any.
Sometimes the new relationship is a boundary.
Sometimes it's distance.
Sometimes it's finally telling the truth.
But sometimes something almost miraculous happens.
You stop asking the other person to overcome the entire weight of your accumulated story about them.
You leave a little space.
And into that space, something new can enter.
Maybe them.
Maybe you.
Maybe a relationship neither of you has had before.
You don’t have to repair twenty years tonight.
You don’t have to solve the person.
Just enter the next encounter without insisting that yesterday must happen again.
They may surprise you.
And you may surprise yourself.
☀️