“The wonderful thing about relationships is that with proper maintenance, the whole is greater than the sum of it’s part.”  This is a statement that is true of not only intimate relationships, but also the bonds that we form in families and other friendships. My dad always tells me that when all is said and done, I will either reminisce about the good or the bad. I like to believe that I can balance the two. However, apart of me feels that it is human nature to hold on to the negative because it is part of our survival skills. We don’t want to get hurt and let’s face it, negativity is pretty much always destructive. My question for myself and others would be “How the fuck do you overcome and re frame the negative shit?” The response is almost always unanimously, you just got to move on and stop taking life so seriously. I get that, I do, and I want to ride that wave so bad and yet I always find a way to sink my rhythm. I’ve heard that your subconscious is always downloading information and so I wonder if part of my self-sabotaging behavior is sometimes not always truly in our control. In many of the interactions that I have with people I tend to take things personally. In other words, I am extremely sensitive. I don’t want to be. I do feel like my sensitivity can be an attractive trait at times, but others I feel pathetic. I have been called childish and baby like and all kinds of other things and I can appreciate those comments to some extent because they make me question how I can possibly be perceived as such. The answer is not always clear, but most of the time I can agree. It’s just messy inside of my body. The clutter that is manifested on the outside of my world is literally a reflection of my inner world.

I can hear it now; Briana, calm yourself, life really isn’t that bad. I know, I say, but it feels that bad. I just can’t understand the fogginess, the unnecessary fog for that matter. Why do I allow it in my little universe? I don’t want to be unhappy; I don’t want to label myself as depressed either. I have no idea if I am depressed or if I am just feeling very human things and then what the fuck is a human experience even really supposed to entail. It’s all so loopy and full of contradictions which makes me wonder if I am truly asking the best question in order that I get the best answers.

“For I have heard that he who knows well on how to conserve life, when traveling on land, does not meet the rhinoceros or the tiger, when going to a battle he is not attacked by arms and weapons. The rhinoceros can find nowhere to drive his horns; the tiger can find nowhere to put his claws; the weapons can find nowhere to thrust their blades.” What does it mean to conserve life? Respect and allow to flow as one with it. Stop trying to control it and mold it into something you THINK will serve you. In fact, the only thing that it will serve is your ego. You are not your ego and yet it is in fact a part of you. The main problem that we all face is KNOWING how we can be our most authentic self. Too many times people live in a sort of anxiety of not KNOWING exactly it is that they want. The evidence is all based on how we interact with life on a day to day basis. One day we feel inspired and the next feelings of laziness and exhaustion surface. Life is what you make of it. You can either take in all the data that is your daily interactions and build a life that is invigorating and full of living extravagantly or you can wallow in self-pity and always feeling behind. Conserving life isn’t about accepting everything as is, but it is learning how to be in a symbiotic relationship with life. How can we best serve life and how would we have life serve us? I haven’t mastered this question and the more I observe and analyze others the more I understand that the answer is a process. What was true for us last year is not necessarily true for ourselves today.

“Nothing endures but change.” When it comes to intimate relationships people will make a comment that the honeymoon phase is over. That only means that two people have grown comfortable with each other and are in the process of a transition, some people don’t know how to handle change because it’s a process that has either failed in the past or has never been experienced in depth. As far as my relationship with my parents we have gone from child – parent relationship to adult – parent relationship. It is very difficult to respect boundaries and communicate opinions, but it has been on a trajectory of evolution. We cannot expect change to look pretty all the time. When it comes to relationships with complete strangers it can be even more challenging to allow ourselves to become so vulnerable, but I believe in my heart that it is absolutely necessary. In fact, my boyfriend has seen me at some of my worst moments and the overcoming of those experiences has allowed us to grow and develop into a strong rooted relationship that I believe is worth continuing to strive for and maintain. It takes two people to interconnect in a way that builds a successful marriage of unity. I don’t believe that two people need to necessarily get married in the traditional western sense in order to be considered as such.  I believe two people truly know when the marriage phase has begun. The ring and the ceremony is such a small fraction of it. That goes back again to the whole being bigger than its parts. My relationship with my boyfriend is bigger than just me, it’s intertwined with his life and mine. I care so much about him as an individual and can only hope that when and where I can, I offer nothing but love and support.