I had the opportunity to witness a reconciliation this week. It was between two people who hadn’t talked in 25 or 30 years!
Now I’m not going to go into detail about the people or their situation because they deserve their privacy but it got me wondering: How many of us have done the same thing to one extreme or the other?
And, more importantly, why did we get mad at each other in the first place? Do you even remember?
How many times have we assumed something happened only to find out we were wrong? You may have assumed the other person said this or felt that but, you later found, you misread the whole situation! What’s that they say about the word “assume?” It was Oscar Wilde who said, ‘When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me!” The Oxford Dictionary actually defines it as “suppose to be the case, without proof.” It’s so easy to believe something that someone else said without going to the source to actually find out. How many of us have misinterpreted a text message? When my kids were younger and got upset about a text or AIM message (remember those?) I would always suggest they call the person because you couldn’t tell a tone of voice from a text or message.
There is no way I can sit here and preach forgiveness as I haven’t always done that myself. My brother and I didn’t have the best of relationships over the years. I thought he was wrong about certain things and I’m sure he felt I was way off base sometimes. The unfortunate thing is … he’s gone now and I can never repair things. I get sad about that sometimes. About all I can do is pray for his forgiveness and try not to let that happen in any other relationships I have. I do threaten my children that if they don’t get along with each other I’ll find a way to come back and haunt them. Kidding. I’m kidding. (Or am I?”)
We also never truly understand what someone else is going through on any given day. Recently someone was upset with the way I handled a situation. They thought I should have dealt with it differently. What they didn’t know was that I had several things going on at the same time. I had to prioritize my day. Should I have behaved in a different way? Possibly, but I did what I thought was right at the time. Oh well. You can’t win ’em all!
I will admit, I don’t know what is going on in your life and what the circumstances may be with someone you’ve had a disagreement with. I do have to ask a few questions.
Do you even remember what the argument was about?
Who are you really hurting by ending that relationship?
What are you missing out on by not having that person in your life?
And….
Are you being honest with yourself? Did you misread the situation? Are you totally without fault?
I have an older cousin who shared an incredible “nugget of truth” with me a few years ago. She and I hadn’t talked in a few years and then finally got together. I told her, “I don’t know what happened. I don’t really know why I didn’t keep in touch.” That’s when she said, “You know what happened? Life happened.” Many times there is no one reason. We just get so busy with life that we drift apart. I recently realized that just like the tide shifts, we can drift back.
That was something my two friends said this week. “I don’t know what happened but that’s in the past. We can move on from here.”
Just something I’ve been thinking this week.
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