Managing the Aftermath

Relationships, romantic relationships are very tough.

I've realised lately how much the desire to 'make it work' can distort you. I always thought with Sam and I that if one of us, both of us, just tried harder, it'd be ok.

I tried so hard. I gave so much of myself, bits I never even knew I had, bits I certainly didn't like, bits I could have done with in reserve. I believe she did too.

At times I tried far too hard, focused on it far too much. Forgot who I was, what I wanted, why I was even there in the first place.

I lost myself. That's horrible. I was so busy trying to shape myself in directions I don't easily go, that I forgot what I looked like, what I was meant to look like. I was so determined that every failure was my failure, and therefore mine to correct, that I didn't see the biggest mistakes I was making was to stop being the person she fell in love with. The person who loved herself going in.
Falling out of love with someone else is easy, falling out of love with yourself is the hard bit.

I heard myself tonight, in a good friend. She was saying how her relationship just needed to be worked at. She was saying how she was nuts and paranoid and had lost all sense of perspective. She was saying how there had to be something wrong with her, how she was obviously unable to commit, to see things through.

It reminds me of Nicki. With her beautiful translucent skin believing that if she just tries harder, just uses the right cream and gets the right amount of sun in the right places, she'll go the same colour as Ailsa, who just happens to have a Mediterranean complexion.

I don't think my friend is nuts, I just think she's unhappy. I think she's trying to make herself happy in a set of circumstances that essentially go against what she needs to get there. I think, like Nicki and her suntanning efforts, she'll realise that sometimes hard work is not actually enough.

Maybe our grandparents had it right. They didn't expect so much. The secret to a successful marriage perhaps? Maybe we're so used to being constantly entertained, constantly spoiled for choice, that settling for something seems incomprehensible. Our grandparents had snippets of news delivered via the radio. We have vats of the stuff pouring from orifices that never even existed. Our grandparents had very little knowledge or expectation around sex. If it was crap, that's just how it was. Our grandparents had one job, for life, then retired, and sat in chairs till they died. My grandparents went on holiday in a caravan, or maybe to a British sea-side resort, a couple of times a year. Now we can flick channels, jump on low cost airlines, date through the net, achieve multiple, duel spot orgasms, have a plethora of careers then plan fancy pants projects for retirement. Has it made us any happier?

If our expectations get raised so high, can anything ever seriously live up to them?
If we are constantly faced with choices, is it any wonder so many of us seem so indecisive?

Then I read something. Like the fact that 90% of the world's population have never made a phone call.

And wonder, does managing the aftermath even matter?