No one needs another statistic on failing relationships, but in order to make them work, they require maintenance and care. “Relationships are one of the most complex things on the planet,” Kiaundra Jackson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, explains to me. “Each relationship has a unique set of problems.”
Thanksgiving is the beginning of holiday season and, for many of us, holiday season is more stressful than it should be. You’re around people that you may not see all the time. There’s alcohol involved. Too much money is being spent. It’s a lot.
There is no way to predict how grief will manifest itself. Each experience is unique and will require something different of you. Feel what you feel when you feel it, but then give yourself permission to heal.
I’ve learned to find value in a handful of quality friends over a crowd of people who I’m not truly connected with. I’ve learned to appreciate those relationships that manage to survive the highs and lows life, because they make you feel less alone. They make your tragedies feel less isolating and your celebrations that much more meaningful. They meet you where you are, and everyone needs that sometimes.
It’s impossible to see the end of something in the beginning, and sometimes relationships crumble before we’ve even realized how fragile they are. When you start to understand who you are, and you start to create a life around yourself that supports that, you attract the kind of people that will nourish that type of growth.