For me, life is all about relationships.  With God, friends, family, pets, etc.  Every relationship is challenging, to say the least, but worth the work.  Now I say that, but as I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize not all relationships are worth the work.   I’ve had the…opportunity I’ll say, to have had an abundance of relationships.  (For those of you thinking “yea you have” shut it lol!)  I’m talking about all sorts of relationships – and since I’ve had quite a few – I feel somewhat justified to speak (type) about this. 

SO what am I getting at? 

The point of this rant, is to identify your spot in the relationship.  Where do you fit in in this person’s life?  Are you front and center – a vital presence in their life, are they dragging the relationship on – making every effort and you go along with it if you don’t have anything better to do, are you in a one sided relationship with multiple people, or have you found a healthy balance? What’s your status in the relationship?  How does that relationship hinder/grow you as a person, and your life in general?  I realize these are odd questions to ask – but since I hit my wise age of 27, I’ve been asking myself this a lot.  Why?  Because I’ve reached the point in life where I only want relationships that are going to last, and have a meaningful impact on my life. 

Ever hear the saying “I’d rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies”?  Amen to that. 

Even though these are odd questions, they’re pretty simple to answer.  How? you ask.  “Actions speaker louder than words” will answer these for you.  An example.  My dog, Lynard.  I know he loves me endlessly by how excited he gets when he sees me.  He showers me with stinky kisses, and cuddles up next to me any chance he can.  His actions demonstrate his love for me,  Another?  Sarah – my person.  Time isn’t an issue for us. We’re lucky if we see each other twice a year, but that doesn’t matter.  She’s constantly doing things to assure me of my importance to her, and we both make a genuine effort to make our long distance best friendship work.  We’ve had ups and downs, but we, together, worked through them.  Here’s another one for you.  I’ll call him… Rico  – because he was so suave.  Rico was charming.  We would go on great dates, and Rico talked to me in such a way that made me think he wanted something real.  Uh…Rico?  Where are you?  Oh there you are days/weeks later.  He’d disappear, reappear and somehow turn the disappearing act on me.  Repeat date.  Repeat disappearing act.  The sad part was, I held onto the dreamy things he said during our dates, and didn’t realize his lack of actions showed he genuinely didn’t care about me.  This was a hard realization – but I finally understood I was a toy in his game and the only person getting hurt was me.  One last relationship.  My God.  God loves me (and you) so, so much deeper than imaginable.  He longs for relationship with me, and if I have time, I’ll give Him a few minutes.  Boo on me.  Why would I not invest in this relationship?  I need to get my act together. 

I could go on and on with scenarios, but you get the point.

The people in my life have made it easy for me to identify my spot in their lives.  If they make an effort to spend time with me, know me, care for me – I can assume I’m an important part of their life.  If I haven’t heard from you in months, and when we do talk, I’m the one that’s done all the initiating, well, I’ll give it one last go, but after that, I’m going to have to let it go.  This is especially difficult with people I’ve known for some time.  I justify the unhealthy/one sided relationship because they’ve been in my life for so long and I feel somewhat of an obligation.  But…Who cares?  Obviously not them.  Some of the most genuine friendships I have are with people I’ve recently met. 

I realize this is somewhat of a downer post – but I think the words need to be ingested.  Life is too short to not feel joy, love, have genuine relationships and recognize your worth.  You, my friend, deserve the best.  You deserve to be treated respectfully, thoughtfully, joyfully… Don’t ever settle for less than you deserve.  It may be lonely at times.. but I believe God has something, someone, multiple someones, stored for you, even bigger and better than you could dream up.  Please note – I do recognize some people/relationships are perfectly fine with only talking when they need something or are bored and I think if both sides are OK with it – then that’s a balanced relationship.  This post is meant for more intimate (close friends, spouses etc) relationships.

A final word…
Thank you to those who have shown me how important I am to you.  I value your friendship, love and support more than you know.  A sincere apology to those who have wanted my time, and for some reason or another I haven’t invested time with you.  Maybe give me one last go – and something beautiful will be formed.  For those of you who wish to merely be an acquaintance, I look forward to sharing a high 5 with you. Finally, for those of you who randomly appear in my life when something has happened and you want juicy details.  Don’t.

God is good friends.  God is good.