In your greatest times of desperation, you find yourself sitting alone somewhere, thinking about just how low you’ll go to get even a slice of what you really want. We seek out that distraction that we deem necessary to brighten our lonely nights and, ultimately, our lonely lives. But what if what we really need in life isn’t at all what we’ve always believed it to be, and our hopes, dreams and expectations serve as nothing more than a mere mirage in the desert of the mind?
In many respects, life is one grand game of give-and-take. You give yourself to someone in hopes that what they have to offer in exchange is worth more than what you’re giving up. But what happens when, like passing along trading cards on the playground, you find yourself giving away a Charizard in exchange for a Goldeen?
In my own travels, I’ve stumbled upon all kinds of relationships with varying degrees of this give-and-take dynamic. I’ve witnessed those who cherish their partner enough to “settle down” when they’ve never thought themselves as “the marrying kind;” and I’ve met others who have tragically and (on the surface) delusionally given all of themselves for a relationship based on poor foundation.
But the one thing I’ve found in common with these relationships, despite my own cynicism and the apparent lack of inconsistency, is a smile. They give, they take, they fight, they complain, but they always end with a smile. In a dating world that demands that others find a balance of the game of give-and-take, how is one to interpret a relationship that thrives despite a lack of this so-called ideal dynamic.
In the time we spend analyzing our dating lives and determining what is “proper,” it seems likely that we miss out on what we truly want, and what we truly need. We become so obsessed with this idea of balance and appropriateness, that our definition of what makes a relationship successful becomes … jaded.
The moment you find yourself content in a relationship is most likely to occur the moment you realize that a relationship is never going to be a real-life reflection of your own fantasies.
Regardless of what logic might have you believe, a successful, balanced relationship finds its success not in the count of months that it endures, but the count of smiles that are constantly plastered onto your face. Even when or if the relationship meets its end, who is to say that that makes the relationship unsuccessful? Why spend days, weeks and months mourning our “failed” relationships, when we could celebrate the wonderful times that preceded the unfortunate end of an era?
Life, as entangled as it is in the game of give-and-take, is measured better by your own relative stance on success. Finding love and losing it isn’t something to be sour or bitter about, it’s something to celebrate. You celebrate not just the fact that it happened, but the fact that it was able to happen, and that it will happen again.
So, no matter where you are in life, no matter how lonely or desperate you may feel, raise a glass to the comforting thought that you can feel at all. Because in the end, even if you find yourself as an elderly “cat lady,” you can rejoice in knowing that you were able to share your love, and give it away to someone (cat or otherwise) you gave worth to.
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