Close Up and At a Distance

How difficult it is to dose things properly within a relationship. To know when to live together, and when to take time away. It’s even more difficult because there are two people here with two different wills at work. Right now I want something, but she doesn’t. Now she wants that something but the time just isn’t right for me. All relationships require this kind of wisdom – father to son, between friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife. There are couples that after having lived together for years, decide to live in separate houses so the relationship can go on. So many friendships are defined only to then wither away, or suffer significant fractures when they become partners in a work environment, or when they move in together to share the rent or sometimes when they live intensely together on a long journey. A great many people stay and live together for five, eight years, and then two years after getting married they separate. Many a time, a good relationship between parents and their children is established only after the sons or daughters go and live separately in their own homes, maybe because they get married or move to another city or just because they want to live alone and have their own space. There are happy couples whose relationship goes into crisis because the husband retires – or both retire – and coexistence becomes too intense.

How difficult it is to perceive, that even when there exists true Love between two people, that knowing how not to suffocate one or the other with our wished and desires is fundamental: ‘I want now, I’m craving affection, I need you.’ And at the same time knowing to give: ‘Right now she really needs me to be there, she needs my advice, help, affection. I have to put aside for a moment my life, my interests and needs because her needs are bigger and more urgent than mine.’

An immense amount of lucidity is necessary to avoid creating resentment, hurt feelings, and wishes of revenge when whom I love cannot, doesn’t want, or needs to take care of his own interests far away from me. ‘If he truly loved me he would do this for me.’ However, in other moments we are the ones who say no, and want the other person to accept, to comprehend: ‘Doesn’t he see that I need to be faithful and loving to my family/friends/ children as well?’

Each and every one of us is a bundle of varied needs and is within a web of family relationships, friendships and professional engagements. There are people who need to spend periods of time alone, be it at home or far away from it, to recharge our batteries, so that the longings return, so that the love awakens. Even people who are very gentle and caring don’t live in a state of perpetual love. Lovingness, tenderness, the willingness to listen, to give advice, to give pleasure and affection is never permanent in us. We all have to take care of ourselves, to rest, to care for other relationships that are also essential to us: ‘All love is sacred.’

Clearly, there are always those very selfish people who only want to receive and are never willing to listen or help. Even with such people it may not be necessary to cut off the relationship and distance yourself completely. There are those who are terrible listeners, who don’t find it important to stay close by to those who need them, but even so retain their beauty, charm, and their fascination. We receive from people; we are nurtured by them in two ways. The first is when they are caring, gentle, loving, and glad to help and also when they are solidary. Our needs are met directly. We are grateful to the person and know that they are trustworthy.

Then on the other hand there are those egotistical charmers. Hardly ever do they attend our needs, but hold a beautiful relationship with life or with some aspect of it. Simply being close to the person, to attend their needs, hear or help them, we receive, we learn and are enriched. Even if they are not attentive to our needs, they are sensitive, intelligent, creative and interesting. We receive from them while they drain us. They are not generous, but they feed us, not through what they give, but who they are. Many times the act of helping someone, even if very selfish, enriches those who give.

We need to have an intelligent flexibility so that we can flow within our relationships. Never will someone give us everything that we want at the moment that we need or wish it. Being frustrated by people, even if they are loved ones, even if they’re the most loving ones, is inevitable. We also, like it or not, will frustrate sooner or later the people whom we love the most. The great effort, the necessary clarity we need to not sulk, to not put yourself in the position of a victim, to not harm those who frustrate us. Breathe deeply, relax, and be in silence so as to not be unjust, to know when to wait. If we could discern what each person has to give us, what they can or can’t offer us in each instance, we could establish constructive, nurturing and loving relationships with most people. The art of loving and being loved is also knowing how to offer yes and no’s, it’s knowing how to receive an offer and a refusal, with lightness, serenity, joyfulness and gratefulness.