Relationships

Relationships!!! What complicated stuff! It is something that begins along with your life. You get a bunch of people you call your family/ blood relations. Whether you like it or not, they are your relations and it's up to you whether to maintain those relations, as you go on in life.

But in the initial years these relations define your identity, or it is through these relatives that you are known: "Somebody's son/ daughter", "Somebody's brother/ sister", "(s)he is from that family". For some time, this goes on as your sole identity, and these relatives, the only ones you have.

Then, in the next stage, you discover a new kind of relationship: FRIENDSHIP. This is a completely different kind of relationship; formed out of choice. This is a relationship where you don't have any obligations. No strings attached. You are free to choose your friends. A friendship develops only when there is mutual understanding, mutual trust and develops between people who have the same wavelength. In the childhood days, you start exploring the world with your friends. and you discover a special joy in this new relationship, the joy of being understood perfectly well. These are the people who like the same things you do, have the same sort of doubts that you have, want to do the same sort of things that you want to, and those ones to whom you wont feel any hesitation in pouring your heart out, without the fear of being misunderstood.

Then comes the next stage, time for the most complicated of all relationships: love/ romance/ attraction/ infatuation/ crush... the list of words to describe this relationship is endless. People have come up with many different words, to specifically define each variation of this feeling, still, it goes undefined. It's way too complicated to compress in a few words.

In every phase of life you start new relationships. You don't sacrifice your family when you get friends, but you are ready to sacrifice any other relationship for the sake of love. And usually it is the friendships that suffer the most. 'You cannot ignore your family. They are your family. Whatever you are today is because of them. You owe them so much. You have your obligations.' You are obliged to do certain things for your family. And that goes for the family you start/ build also. But friends? No, they are not demanding. They leave it up to you, to make your choice, to take your decisions. They understand your situation, and never complain. They'll definitely miss you, but they let you be what you want to be, and let you do what you want to do.

But when you have problems in life, problems in your relationships, when your boyfriend/ girlfriend leaves you, it's your friends who will stand by you, help you out, find solutions for you, cheer you up, and help you move on in life; the same friends whom you'd forgotten when you were busy with other relationships.

If you call up an old friend after a long time, may be years later, you get a happy response; they never complain that you dint call earlier. And once you hang up after a long conversation, refreshing old memories, you feel so happy. You feel the same happiness that you've experienced with that person.

What other relationship is there in this world, which is so beautiful, so undemanding and so easy to maintain!