Taking a cue from my last post, almost a year ago, the title is similar.
Five years (alone) does not mean:
That you know someone
That you can depend on them
That they will behave as a quality human being
That they care about you in any way that really matters
I guess what I'm saying is, do not be fooled into trusting unconditionally or depending on someone with the mere passage of time. Rather, the gift of your love and trust should be dependent on a conglomeration of factors. What has this person done in the past to suggest that when the going gets rough, they'll run or stay? What has happened in the past to suggest that they are not someone who will work with you, compromise with you? If someone refuses to work with you and compromise with you, you are forced into terrible situations in which your support of them is dependent on giving up everything important to you, and if you refuse, you are inevitably the remembered as the villain. When considering the terribly important gift of true trust and who you choose to give it to, be always vigilant to the person's behavior, with others as well as yourself. While someone may prefer to be around you over various others, in the end, their general treatment of humans will predict their general treatment of you. What I mean by this is that if you consistently witness someone lie, manipulate, and display selfish behavior, no matter how much they profess to care about you, eventually they will lie to you, manipulate you, and behave selfishly with you.
Often, when we have known someone for years, our memory of their mere presence during good times and the bad in our lives tricks us into thinking that, "They were there through thick and thin, that must mean something." But this is not necessarily true. While they were perhaps physically there, were they there in support of you? Or just in mere presence? What did they do for you? I'd say we each go through about one 'personal crisis' per year, and a person's behavior with you during these crises speaks volumes about their true dedication to you. Note that I say BEHAVIOR, not mere presence or the superficial appearance of support. I would say, at this point in my life, that if someone behaviorally bails on you more than once, it's time to let go of whatever you had invested in this friendship or relationship. For example, who was there to hold you when you cried, and who was sticking their head in the sand because it made them uncomfortable?
Do not ignore these things simply because you have already invested so much time and effort into something. If I start work on a house, and realize at some point in my work that what I have done will in no way ever be structurally sound and fit for long-term, I cannot simply ignore this fact and continue the project to completion only because I can't bear the fact that I have wasted this time, energy, and resources. The only way to build a good house will be for me to briefly mourn the loss of my time and effort, then systematically demolish what I have already done (since it is fatally flawed), and begin again from the ground up, perhaps with new materials and greater insight into what mistakes I can avoid. But I can never have a safe and comfortable home if I use the same method I did before. Long story short? Cut your losses. Cry if you must, but only briefly, and begin again. We are all living on borrowed time, and to live in willful ignorance of this fact will leave you bitter and sad for all you could have done while you were futilely trying to make a broken house into a place you could live.
Additionally, the best predictor of future behavior? Past behavior. Never forget this. Sometimes people change, but this is EXTREMELY rare, and cannot be counted upon. Better to assume that you are not the exception.
Fin.
"Foolish Games," by Jewel
You took your coat off and stood in the rain
You're always crazy like that
And I watched you from my window
Always felt I was outside, looking in on you
You were always the mysterious one
With dark eyes and careless hair
You were fashionably sensitive,
But too cool to care...
You stood in my doorway with nothing to say
Besides some comment on the weather
Well, in case you failed to notice
In case you failed to see
This is my heart, bleeding before you
This is me down on my knees
These foolish games are tearing me apart
And your thoughtless prayers are breaking my heart
You're breaking my heart.
You were always brilliant in the morning
Smoking your cigarettes
And talking over coffee
Your philosophies on art, baroque moved you,
You loved Mozart
And you'd speak of your loved ones
As I clumsily strummed my guitar
You'd teach me of honest things
Things that are daring, things that are clean
Things that knew what an honest dollar did mean
I hid my soiled hands behind my back
Somewhere along the line, I must have gone off track with you
Excuse me-- think I've mistaken you for somebody else...
Somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself
These foolish games are tearing me apart
And your thoughtless prayers are breaking my heart
You're breaking my heart.
You took your coat off, and stood in the rain--
You're always crazy like that...
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thoughtful
awake
sleepy
