Relationships…like glass!

Today, I write about my most favourite topic in the whole world, once again – relationships. Relationships have fascinated me since as far back as I can remember. Relationships between parents and children, relationships between siblings, relationships between friends and of course, relationships between partners, all of them though are similar in their respective categories, they still are so similar in many aspects.

My most favourite relationship among all those that I listed above is the parent-child relationship. It goes without saying that mine is probably a very strong one. Since I had no siblings, I could never experience the sibling love but I have observed plenty of such relationships and they fascinate me as well. But the absence of a sibling of my own just made the parent child relationship even stronger. I am extremely close to my parents. I always considered myself a complete daddy’s girl. But I never realized that I was almost as close to my mom if not more. I realized it after she left me. With my dad it’s always been jokes and teasing and chatting about new technology/gadgets. But with my mother, it was different. All the problems a teenager or a 20 something can possibly face, were solved by my mother. She was the one I turned to for everything. The parent-child relationship is probably the only relationship under the sun that you can afford to take for granted. Yes, it is said that you should never take anyone for granted but I will say that it’s still okay to take your parents for granted because that’s how that relationship is. No one on this planet will ever care about you the way they do. Nothing can ever stop them from caring either. No amount of mistakes you make will ever throw them off. A parent-child relationship is a two-way street. Both sides need each other throughout our lives. What is surprising about this relationship is the fact that it can withstand any amount of storm you throw at it and yet it is so different in terms of individuals. I can guarantee that no two people will say their relationship with their parents is exactly the same. Every parent-child relationship is different but it behaves the same way when it comes to crisis.

The next relationship that I can briefly touch upon is the sibling relationship. All siblings behave in extremes. They love each other dearly and yet can pull each other’s limbs out when it comes to fights! Though I’ve never experienced it first hand, I’ve observed quite a few and off them, my most favourite one is the elder brother-younger sister relationship. The love is unimaginable. They fight like cats and dogs but the brother is always extra protective of the sister. Maybe it’s the same in all sibling relationships but I’ve observed this one more so I can speak only for this one. Sometimes I wish I had an elder brother who would take care of me the way I’ve seen elder brothers do. I bet if I did have one, I wouldn’t have gone through half the crap I have had to go through in the last couple of years. He would have made sure I never do. Elder sisters with younger brothers are almost like a second mother. They become more of an authority figure than the parents so that’s a different relationship altogether. For brothers, the age doesn’t figure in. They fight and bond at the same time. Sisters, similarly, fight like crazy but when it comes to supporting, no one supports each other like sisters. The best part of this is the childish behavior of the younger ones like telling on the older ones and the older ones being the perfect siblings, taking blames for the younger ones. I wish I had someone to share these feelings with.

Now I will come to the next big chunk of relationships in my life – friends and partners. Since I never had a bond with siblings, for me, friends were my world (after my parents). One quality I am proud to have inherited from my parents is their loyalty to friends. But the biggest tragedy for all three of us is that our loyalty is almost always misused against us. Both my parents had very few close friends. In fact, I can probably count them with my fingers using one hand alone! My father probably has about 3 to 5 close friends and my mother not even that many. I’m following trend and it’s not for lack of trying. Throughout my school life I struggled to make and keep friends. The ones I did make though were all temporary phases in my life. My personality is probably not meant to support friends. I have not yet met a single person who I can call likeminded. Yes, one or two have come very close but I will describe those ones later. It has been a difficult ride for me in this space so it’s hard to write about it. But I’ve always been hopeful that I will find that perfect friend and even though I can’t call one person that friend, I feel lucky that in every phase of my life, I did have someone who filled that spot. It is crazy how much you start depending on these people in your life and this is the main relationship where you can never afford to take anyone for granted. Very few people in this category will stay true to you no matter what happens. You have to be extra careful in these relationships because the smallest of tiffs can end this relationship for good. And of course, this is probably the most unpredictable and complicated relationship you can ever encounter. In this context, I remember a saying I read somewhere – “Once there’s a crack on a glass item, it remains there forever. You can never go back to a crack free glass. You can either maintain it that way or break it completely. There’s no fixing it.” A friendship and partnership is exactly like that. Cracks can never be filled. You can only hope to be so careful that cracks never appear or, if a crack has appeared, take extra care that no further damage occurs or let it slip from your hands and see it break into a million pieces right in front of your eyes!