The Relationship That Changes You

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”

Some relationships are not meant to last forever. They are meant to change you.

The friendship that introduced you to a way of thinking you had never encountered. The love that broke you open and showed you what you were capable of feeling. The mentor who saw something in you that you had not yet seen in yourself. The difficult person who, through the friction of your encounters, helped you discover your own edges.

These relationships may not have ended well. They may have ended in loss, in conflict, in the ordinary fading of connection. But they did their work.

The question to ask of any relationship that has ended is not only: why did it end? But also: what did it make possible? What did it show me about myself that I could not have seen otherwise?

Related Reflections

Themes that often travel alongside relationships.