i was talking with my oldest, jenna boyd today on the phone, she has recently been discouraged regarding a relationship with a boy that had looked rather hopeful...the struggles of finding someone, someone that is the RIGHT someone, the one that God is giving you a very significant "thumbs up" this is the one! someone... so hard... we talked about the games that people play in trying to decipher each others wants and needs... communication gaps in stating those wants and needs... being true to the people that you love and that love you...how do we do it? how do we decipher it all?... practice...building on past experiences and noting what works and what doesn't...
being in a relationship for the past 35 years i think about how things have messed up, meshed and morphed throughout all these decades...i think of all the lessons i have learned and how i pray on a daily basis that i be thoughtful and mindful of the most important person to me on this planet...that i never take him for granted and that i purposefully love him, with the intention to make his life more full and the back-splash of that will be that mine is more full as well...
when i think of a relationship of give and take, fragile strength and a deceptively simple/complex dance of blending two lives, i think of my parents...and this is the "connect the dots" vision of how it's done... simple moments... my parents daily taking time to sit in the afternoon in their bedroom and talk about their day...i remember so vividly looking through their open door when i was little, my dad laying down on the bed and my mom perched on the edge, holding his hand and the two of them talking about their day... every day... and my last memory, painfully and vividly etched on the inside of my mind, the picture of my parents, after almost 60 years of marriage, seeing my mom, perched on the edge of my dad's hospital bed at their apartment, holding his hand and talking to him, two days before he died... i saw them as i was leaving for the night and the glow of the lamp behind them will forever hold that portrait silhouetted moment ... relationships? new, not so new, tried and true, the deciphering comes from the 100 percent effort of each person in the couple to truly know and support the other...no matter what...
