On Friends and Family

My last blog entry was on the topic of being a mother. Today on my woods road walk I pondered the topic of friends and family. The more I thought about it the more complicated it seemed. The book I am working on right now is basically about a family that has had some severe dysfunction which resulted in estrangement and separation mostly caused by misunderstandings, feelings of betrayal and years of pride and stubbornness preventing anyone from getting to the root of it all. I realized on my walk that I had in the five hours of standing at the market and talking to several people been witness to a lot of situations in which friends or family are living that same scenario. Boy it's hard maintaining healthy, active and positive relationships with family and friends. Mothers /daughters, sons/ parents, daughters/ fathers, sisters, friends ; all types of relationships that have unravelled. Without giving any details, in talking to people yesterday, I saw and heard of them all. For myself I spoke to a friend that over the years I have drifted apart from. It makes me sad that our friendship is not what it once was. Maintaining relationships with friends and family takes a lot of work. Relationships change of course and distance plays a part in that change. Sometimes the distance is geographic and sometimes it is emotional. It is all very complicated. Sometimes family is not even anyone that is related to you. Sometimes the best father or mother ,sister or brother is one you find, not one that shares your DNA. We can not be all things to all people. When hearing ,seeing or sensing some of the pain or in some cases the pain they so carefully protect anyone from seeing, I wanted to be able to say something that could fix things. In the book I am writing I am trying to do that. I can dig deep and see the causes and manipulate my characters into situations that might bring about healing. In real life it is not so easy and I realize that I can only try to do my best with the relationships that I have. I fall short in so many cases, but I will keep trying.