I went swimming at a friend's house recently. It had been a while since I had so much skin bare in the sunlight, and though I carry sunscreen with me everywhere, I forgot to put it on my back.
The water was amazing. It embraced me, welcomed me back like a long-lost lover, supported me as I moved through it for hours and hours.
That night, though, I paid for my lack of forethought with a sunburn so severe and painful that lifting my arms over my head brought tears to my eyes. The brush of my hair across my shoulders made me whisper "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" as though being burned with a hot iron. Days later, the pain persists and makes me regret my foolhardiness.
Pondering it all made me think of how relationships are similarly fluid. They change and move and what may seem a tiny oversight can lead to huge mishaps.
Friends, lovers, family, people themselves are fluid. If we don't make an effort to keep up with the changes, apply our protections and keep swimming, we can drown or burn. No one is carved in stone, no one stays the same throughout their lives.
Sometimes it may seem like a lot of work, and sometimes it may well be too much work and we may have to let a relationship go or suffer burns over and over and over again.
Most of the time, though, the rewards are worth the work, and the painful reminders when we forgot to put in the labor still don't make the relationship one we should ditch altogether. We just need to be more careful next time.
Now and then it just pays to remind ourselves that time only flows the one way, and the moments spent we can never get back. Best to spend them wisely.
What's your favorite wise way to spend your moments?
