Bridges.

Humans. Beings known to display the most complex level of socializing and the highest degree of co-existence in a community. Exceptions not considered, all of us want to experience the feeling of belonging. We all try to mold ourselves into someone who can fit into the society so that we can be satisfied through acceptance. We want people around us, our family, friends, and everyone who we believe makes our life better. Every being we interact with, we build a relationship. A stranger is not a stranger anymore. An acquaintance to our best friends, we build relationships other than the ones we acquire when we are born.

The relationship defined like bridges. There are elements of trust, love and care that hold up the bridges. The exchange of feelings keep the bridge alive. Strong firm bridges built with trust over the years; the bridges built between two people where there could be equal expression of love from both the ends, or could exist a case of a one sided lover, when the overwhelming flow of feelings flowing from one end to the other only to hit a brick wall oblivious, or pretending to be. We build bridges with everyone we meet. The path made through the nature of the conversation, and sacrifices form a blue cloudy sky above and the water under the bridge.

So is it time, level of trust or sincere communication of feelings that determine a relationship stronghold. While these may be the building blocks of a relationship; the one which holds the bridge up; one which stops the bridge from burning down to ashes. The water under the bridge and the blue skies above; sacrifices; sacrifices determine how a relationship can turn out. Sacrificing habits, sacrificing things, sacrificing other relationships, sacrificing your own ego. Yet like everything else in this world, the importance of balance in relationships also cannot be overlooked.

Almost all the time we build a relationship, we are prepared to ask ourselves what we are ready to give for the relationship to sustain and stay alive. We seldom ask ourselves what we need to give up. What we are ready to give up; how important it maybe to us, better defines our commitment to a relationship than what we are ready to give. And commitment is assurance which leads to development of trust and hence strengthening of the relation. While our sacrifices seem to be a small price to pay for a good relationship, we must always have our eyes open to the dangers of exploitation and betrayal.

As much as we need to appreciate the importance of maintaining relationships in our life, it is also equally important that we realize that sometimes, it is possible that no matter the amount of time we have put into it, no matter how much trust the pillars holding up the bridges of relationships are imbued with, no matter how strong our feelings are smothering us to try and yet try again to hold onto a person, to not let go; we need to burn the bridges. Let it be your best friend, or someone who you believed you loved more than yourself; but if the path is tainted by the skies and waters of sacrifices, storm brewing up with tension and stress and what we speak and what we think is more about what we gave up for each other; that’s when the pillars collapse and the bridge goes crumbling down.

If we believe we have committed a mistake which could jeopardize the relationship, it is important that we try our best and put in all our efforts to set it right. If there is a misunderstanding it is the equal responsibilities for both people to stand up and fight for the relationship to sustain like it did before. After all there is no perfect relation where everything goes exactly according to plan, but it is in fact the highs and lows which gives everyone the opportunity to make their choice of response which reflects on their commitment to the cause.

Before we build bridges with anyone else in this world, we already have one within us, the one we have built with our own conscience. As toddlers, our thinking has no bounds and our innocence giving our conscience a life of it’s own, we speak and laugh to ourselves finding reasons to stay happy with a healthy relationship with our conscience, ourselves; yet as adults we find reasons to stay unhappy, often not being able to fit in self communication into our busy schedule of life. Skies of emotions and feelings and running waters of sacrifices we make for others, around the golden bridge we have built to our own conscience and developed over the years.

Let your relationship with others not define the bridge you travel to connect with yourself, let it not induce feelings of self doubt or hatred. If you find yourself to be the only one sacrificing everything you hold close to yourself and your personality, if you find yourself full of feelings for someone who feels nothing for you, if you feel you could trust someone with your life while they do not value it, maybe after all some bridges need to be sacrificed to sustain the one within yourself.

“The only thing you need to hold onto in life, is each other.”

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