You know I have a yet another confession to make – it is becoming addictive I think. Anyway, one of my many and varied faults I can bear terrible grudges. Worse, they tend to be ones generated absolutely over the silliest of things such as undirected and throwaway remarks someone has made or simple things done or not done. These little weapons of hurt just have that unerring ability that just stab me in the area I am most sensitive at that particular point in time. The metaphorical knife is not just sharp, but also one where the blade of the knife is usually serrated with horrific barbs and dipped in mental poison that prevents the wounds from ever healing entirely. Even when I know I’m just collateral damage. Intentional attacks are easier to bear.
 
I find it so easy to be wounded in this way that I am amazed I have any friends left.
 
So I was wondering why it is that you can know people for many years, when inevitably you will upset each other, and then still want to see them without out punching their nose for that time ten years ago they unconsciously said something that really hurt you.
Where I came out was to shake my head in wonder again about the mystery that are our relationships with others and the slight sadness I feel when the relations between two people are pigeonholed into something far too simplistic.
 Every one of us is a unique creation of our genetics and our experiences and when we meet someone we start on a relationship – of any sort – with another person that too is going to be quite unique as a result.
 It might be a very short relationship, someone you just met at a mutual friend’s party and had a thirty minute chat with, but it is still a relationship and potentially an important one – that 30 minutes perhaps gave you a piece of information that will later be crucial in some way (‘Yes, he said, ‘the way to tell the difference between these two snakes, one harmless and one deadly poisonous is simply…’)
Some relationships will be more obviously major ones, like a significant other (if you find one), your close family or that best friend who knows all the things the family and the significant other don’t know about you – but each relationship itself is a mixture of two life stems entwining together to a lesser or greater extent. Sometimes that entwining strengthens both stems, and sometimes the friction between them causes one or both to fray. The result is the relationships where that entwining is more mutual and there is less friction are the ones that sustain us. Often the stems start thin and weak and if too much friction occurs too quickly the relationship will break – or one stem will strangle the other, like a kind of emotional parasite. But if the entwining is strong and mutually supporting, a little bit of conflict is not going to destroy it – even if, in a grudge lover like me, it might never be forgotten, scars are not always negative things – open sores are the problem.
The most upset I have been recently is when I upset someone I care about. I did not mean to, but that does not remove the damage I did or my annoyance with myself for being thoughtless. I should try and be better than that, because although I will fail to live up to the standard in my head – again and again – with a bit of effort I can fail a bit less, or maybe less disastrously. Relationships are the most beautiful things in my life, from the Lovely Wife to some simply awesome friendships I am very privileged to have. They have taught me so much, allowed me to experience regularly ample hope and joy and even the relationships that – for whatever reason are no longer there to help me manage this mess of contradictions that I normally feel my life looks like have been fundamental in shaping how my life has gone so far. Up to a point, I feel I owe people the benefit of the doubt and my compassion and forgiveness, and just hope the people closest to me feel the same way towards my transgressions.