A friend of mine offered me the analogy that people are in our lives for a season. She said that some seasons are longer than others. She stressed knowing when the season was over in order to move forward. My mind scanned over many of my relationships with people; my family, my friends, boyfriends, even my enemies. Other than someone dieing, I realized that I've always had control over how long those seasons lasted in my life.Life gets tough sometimes. Dead weight can sink you. Sometimes in an effort to preserve one's own sanity, and even survival, we find ourselves severing relationships. I think when we are younger, we don't fully understand the concept. We just accept everyone who comes into our lives and deal with them. As our opinions and expectations grow stronger, we begin to form our own sets of beliefs and values. As we do that, we tend to surround ourselves with like minded individuals. We choose people who support us and enhance our lives in some way. Even our family members become favorite cousins, or favorite uncles/aunts etc. We love (and hate) based on what we believe and value.
Sometimes the people close to us change and their views become so different from ours that we begin to question if their presence in our lives are still valid. Are they enhancing or hindering growth and progress? The answer to this often dictates one's season. Even if we don't recognize it or feel it, we are all learning and growing and forming new values and opinions every day. Our goals and just life in general takes us all in different directions. If one were to just ride the wave, we could easily grow so far away from the people we love and value in life. It truly takes effort to hold on to the positive relationships we find in life. Many times you have to reach out and grab those people in order for your lives to stay close while still growing. So when we find that some of our closest relationships are no longer enhancing our lives, it is sometimes easier to cut them loose. And other times, we hinder our own growth by holding on to people whose season has passed.
Their season being over does not mean that the person is bad, or that you may never see them again. It just means that your lives are no longer growing in the same paths that can keep you as close as you used to be. Recently I have been going over some relationships that I have fought to keep close in my life. I wonder sometimes, if I have not hindered my own growth by holding on to the past. The longer the tenure, it seems that we hold the relationship with more esteem. We count the years, reminisce on the past, and commend ourselves for holding on. But at what price? Could it ever be worth it to hinder your own progress in an effort to continue a friendship of 20 years? What if it were your mother? Your child?
Its a judgement call. And you won't ever know if you did the right thing. I think we just have to focus on growth. Whatever that means to you. Our lives will keep going no matter what until our season is over. Each individual has to decide which relationships are worth it to them. Which ones make their heart smile? Which ones give them a headache? Which ones stunt growth, and which ones make them better...We can't keep everyone. We simply will not be able to grow with everyone. And we will often find that it is our season that has passed in some one's life. To move forward, we must pick the people that are the most loving & encouraging while allowing us the most growth as possible on our life's path and even then, we will still be at the mercy of the elements.
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