Old relationships (can) become new again

How do you handle the termination of a relationship?

When a relationship ends for me, I consider it dead - not the entire connection, just the part that didn't work.

So that intermediate "death" isn't necessarily its final demise.

But it is terminated completely for a period of time.

After some work, I realize that I understand that the way the relationship was constructed didn't work - and how to let go of it, reconstructing a new way to relate.

Whatever dysfunction caused the problems, poison or misunderstandings between the two of us, creating the elements that killed the connection in that form - those are in the past, at least for me.

To rehash nonfunctioning behavior patterns, "offenses," disputes, accusations (baseless and real), misperceptions and perceptions only keeps us mired in the past. But to recall the feelings that we don't wish to repeat? Those I find definitely worth discussing.

That to me is the process of forgiving. I choose to forgive because I don't like to live with anger or "hardness" in my heart. Whether I choose to reconcilliate - physcially reconnect - with someone who has treated me too badly to deserve reconcilliation is beside the point .. I have to forgive them and still maintain my distance. Forgiveness is for me, not for them.

As for true reconcilliation:

Renewing the relationship means creating a whole new experience with one another - an entirely new relationship - that hopefully will show the growth both people have undertaken since the original connection ceased to exist.

I tend to forget most everything that created original communication gulfs - unless someone is outright mean, or dishonest by ommission or comission with me. Those definitley need to be clarified and reconstructed.

It's been fascinating and fun to renew past relationships after a reasonable distance of time; when we decide to make a "clean" start. Misunderstandings and misperceptions tend to get cleared up, again reflecting the personal growth we've each pursued. Although I've gone in with no expectations, it has actually worked.

These relationships tend to be different - and closer than ever. I think it's because both people are equally invested in creating and maintaining a healthy relationship. We always seem to learn things about each other we never knew.

As it say, it doesn't work all the time. But when it does?

Fantastic.

This is also true of my writing projects. I can decide one is just not working and ready for the bin; that's when I tuck it away in the "dead pile" and forget about it.

Then one day I can see how it can achieve a higher creative value for that "dead" project. Time and zen work together and come up with the perfect way to make that script, book, essay, column or article *sing!* And not necessarily in its current form.

But in order for the conversion to be successful, I must remain open to the original project that didn't work being revised into an entirely new form. A book manuscript might works more appropriately as a script and vice versa. A short story becomes a much more suitable poem; a poem makes a more fitting and excellent essay, and so on.

Amazing how art reflects life. Or how life reflects art.