Mentalechoes

“People come into your life for either a reason, a season, or a lifetime”.

A friend of mine told me that. It came up because I have a habit of falling out of contact with people, and I will go for long periods of time without reaching out to people that I am close to. So much so that this friend of mine thought our friendship had come to an end. When I asked her why she thought that, that’s when she told me this.

When I first heard this I thought it was just another fish wives generalisation that said nothing meaningful but sounded very profound. However on the eve of turning 40, I’ve been reminiscing on my life and looking back on the years that were the decade of my 30’s, and realising there is more truth to this than I had first given it credence.

For me, the 10 years from 30 to 39 are marked by these series of significant relationships that lead in a line, one to the next, with each period of partnership representing a time of happiness, introspection, pain and personal growth. Each individual I became involved with started for reasons as unique as the persons themselves, and ended in the same way. Some of these women were only with me for a short time, and left to leave only a memory of the time we spent together, and a select few others are still with me today, being part of my life and growing with me still. I do wonder why it is that this friend of mine from Australia is one I am still close with, and yet the woman from Almere who I had an intense affair with is now only in my past life - in every way? It can’t have anything to do with the depth of feelings because that would mean we would not have left each other. I think perhaps it is because the two of us found of each other in a time of desperate need when we were both overcome with feelings of loss and loneliness. We shared some wonderful moments, and saw each other through a dark time, and then when that period of our lives changed, we didn’t need each other in the same way. I’ve not had contact with her now for several years, but I suppose she is still with that same man she was with, living the same existence of being patient, waiting for the time she could leave and create a new life for herself.

Maybe you can’t really simplify relationships in this way. Relationships are inherently complex things that are all messy because of the nature of being human, but it does seem to me that there is an inextricable link between the timing of a persons arrival in life and the significance of their presence.

Andy.