I would say I am a pretty committed person. I try to move through the world with follow through. If I say I am going to do something, its 90% likely I will. Alas, I am not perfect and do have my falters.
I would say I am best at this in a professional/career/school environment. In these spaces, I strive to be dependable and follow through to the nth degree.
In relationships, I would say my commitment to my family comes first. They might frustrate me sometimes but I would be nothing without them. My mom laughs at how sensitive her little ones are sometimes. I’ve been thinking about that recently and how differently me and my siblings grew up compared to our parents. I am starting to think that we were put together the way we are to teach her and my father softness and gentleness, after growing up and developing a hard skin. My siblings are also so incredibly important to me. I want nothing more for them than a healthy and happy life, and I hope they know I would part seas to help them get there.
Friendships can be a little harder for me. There are some friendships where I feel that I stand on incredibly solid ground. There is a rhythm that has been established and I am able to see them and understand them without trying too hard. I am so lucky that some of these friendships have been maintained for so long. John and I have been friends coming up on 11 years now. Sabrina and I are coming up on 10 years. Tiffany and I have been friends for 7-8 years. Amber and I have known each other for 6 years. Ashley for 5. Lauren and Anna for 3. Chloe for nearly 10 but a lapse in connection and a reconnect that has brought us closer than ever means she’s been near to me for all that time but even closer in the past year.
Again, I am so lucky to have all of these truly amazing people in my lives. However, something I have been feeling recently is how far away they are, physically. Not one of the people I named above lives in my city. Yet, at the same time I am so grateful for the people in Philly who have made me feel at home: Cierra the connector, and of course Gillian and Zeke. I am so happy to have been able to reconnect with Ellie and for the community I have found in yoga and at Penn. I have found though that it can be very difficult to establish a new rhythm within new friendships.
Sometimes I feel as if I am on unstable ground: should I accommodate or bend if that doesn’t serve me? Building a community often requires discomfort. We have to force ourselves out of our homes, out of our safe spaces, enter other people’s homes and open ourselves up to their energy, or go out into a new environment, into a space where nothing can be predicted. I am expressing this is something I particularly struggle with when it comes to new relationships, but it certainly impacts my older friendships too.
We are all constantly evolving and changing. Sometimes in relationships I feel committed to, I feel the effort drop on the other end. If I were to try and grasp on tight, the effort would be futile; it feels like wax melting through my fingers. If I try to hold on tight, I will only create more heat and melt it more. A good conversation can re-solidify the wax again and the relationship can burn brighter, the candle standing strong and upright. For whatever reason though, sometimes the bonds can’t be reformed. I feel like the wax has dripped all over the floor with friends I am no longer close to, where maybe the commitment has dropped on my end, too: whether this be due to conflict or the nature progression of growing apart. I miss some of these folks dearly, but I have come to accept that there’s only so much wax I can cup in my hands at one time.
The hardest commitments of all for me to wrap my head around are romantic ones. I think I mean this in theory more so than in practice. To build a healthy and sustainable romantic relationship it feels like all of the stars must fortuitously align: timing of what is going on in each person’s world, the mental and physical health of both people, the communication not only in one moment but each and every day, the values of both parties, the beliefs each person holds about themselves and others, the habits and lifestyle one leads. It is a lot to consider.
I say that I mean this more so in theory than in practice because I do enjoy making romantic commitments and have had a history of successful monogamous relationships, but I have begun to take these engagements much more seriously as I get older. In college it felt like graduation was a deadline in a sense. Who knew what was going to happen after diplomas were conferred? Now I know what happens, in a sense: life is (almost) entirely dictated by how you’d like to live it. You could theoretically meet someone and get married the next day. So when dating now, I am considering this at all times.
The tricky spot is the situationship territory. If I like someone, its hard for me to date other people. It is not really the norm though to date someone for say, a month, and start seriously dating (or is it? I don’t know… I guess everyone is on their own timeline.) The theoretical mind-melting state I think myself into is this: isn’t that a commitment in itself? Even if it is not labeled so? How does a label effect the way that we relate to one another? I never sat down with my friends and put the label of “best” in front of it. So when should this distinction be made then? If a relationship is right, does it ever need to be made at all? Or is the connection just known? Implicitly understood… like I feel with my friends.
I have gotten better at committing to myself and listening to what I need, but I am still learning how to balance this with what the people around me need too. Commitments are a wholesome discipline. I used to see this discipline as trapping and harsh, but as I have become softer, the world and the things and people I connect with have become softer, too.
I’ll end with this quote I found in another blog which was shared from Chloe. I am starting to think that maybe all a commitment truly means is being willing to show up for someone else in the presence moment and bear witness to who that person is right now.
“The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone, and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them, and to have believed in them, and sometimes, just to have accompanied them, for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
ANAGRAM 