“ The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” by
~Erma Bombeck
Family can be described as pieces to a puzzle, they are differently shaped around the edges , but fit together to make a complete picture. We are very different individuals there is a bond that connect us, that defines as a person. My family is unique , a few of its members are not connected to me by sharing DNA or blood but we have a deep bond that we share that has made us a family. This process can also be describe as having formed voluntary, members. “This is non-biological relationships that can fulfill family roles.” ( Interpersonal pg 290)
Jen is the oldest and she is six months older than me and Robin is nine months younger than me and Kate is three years younger. We are like sibling , we know all the stories, we have laughed together, comforted each other and shared our of life experience with each other. We are similar to puzzle pieces because we have a role to play in the bigger picture. Robin is the logical one, she always has a plan of action. She is bluntly honest and never holds back what she thinks. She probably the most athletic and she is the only who can really cook. I know if we were every got caught in a natural disaster she would figure out what we do and take us all to safety. Robin is someone you can talk to about many diverse subjects from current events to fashion . Robin and I are both very head strong and we argue the most out of the group. We been this way since childhood and an over time it has lessen to be not as much. Jen is funny and smart and a good listener. She is the kind person you can be silly with and she makes you laugh. You can
count on her to be there though difficult situation , helping you through. She the one who tries to
keep the peace and point out both sides when there is an argument. She also the most girly of the group and takes the longest to get ready. ( Once it was two hours we waited before we left the house.) Jen is the someone I always in contact with and talk to a lot throughout the week.
Kate is funny, energetic , stubborn, impulsive, inhibited. She very artistic and multi talented.( She my biological sibling) Kate is fearless she doesn’t let anything hold her back from taking chances. We are have a very close relationship, we are open and honest with each other no matter what. She is the baby of the group and is everyone looks after her . She doesn’t fight as much with everyone else because of the mentality that she is the youngest. The roles we play has to with content exceptions. “This focuses on how the relationship is defined by each role each partner plays.” ( Interpersonal pg 291) I gave an example of this by talking each of our roles in the family and how we interact with each other.
We communicate similar to the Walkers from the the tv show “ Brother& Sisters.” If one of us know something about the other it’s not long before everyone knows. There a scene from that from Brother & Sister where Kevin is one the phone with Sarah and Robert walks in the room.
(Robert is Kitty’s husband and Kevin and Sarah are Kitty’s siblings) and they began to discusses how they are worried about Kitty. Then Sarah calls Tommy and that leads other members to being call and suddenly everyone is discussing how what is wrong with Kitty and how to cheer Kitty up. This happens a lot in my family, we have very little secrets. I cant tell if that is because we are very close or that we don’t know how to disclose anything.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Loss and Gains
" We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." By Anais Nin
Though every experience there is always a choice to be made. You make a decisions on how you face every challenge, the future career you will have or what you are going to wear today. We make these choices because of our wants, our needs and how this might be best for us. We are constantly faced with difficult decisions. We try to make the best choice in every challenge we are faced with.
I recently had to make a difficult decision about childhood friendship. The relationship was no longer a healthy friendship. I held on for a long time thinking that we could regain what we loss along the way. We became different people and I realized that it was time to stop avoiding it and discuss it. There is a quote by Winston Churchill , “ Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is.” I think after we sat down and talked ,that we reached the conclusion that it was time to say goodbye.
There is this scene in a television show, “My So- Called Life, where Angela and Rayanne recently ended their friendship. They are at play practice for “ Our Town, and in the scene they are practicing the main character has died and she realized how precious every moment is and how she took what she had for granted. In this scene Rayanne and Angela are using the play’s dialogue to say goodbye to their friendship. I can relate to how difficult and painful the situation is when you have to say goodbye I think the scene uses indirect communication to get the point across. There is nothing being directly said about Rayanne and Angela relationship. The lines in the play they are practicing are making an indirect perceptive on their relationship. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lz65pr4_qo)
Twenty-one percent of friendships that have ended was because , you or your friend has changed.( Interpersonal pg,239) When I had this conversation with my friend I used the direct method of communication to end the friendship. It makes your intent obvious about where the communication is leading. Our discussion was open and honest about
our feelings and thoughts regarding our friendship. ( Interpersonal pg, 240) I think that ending any kind of relationship is difficult and I feel that the best approach is the be direct. Some relationship end because we want or need different things or your lives are going in different directions. I ended my friendship because we were not getting what we need from the other. We are constantly taking inventory of our relationship, thinking how we can better the relationship and our communication within that relationship.
In the book,” That was Then this is Now,” by S.E. Hinton is about two foster brothers who are growing up and growing apart . The book discuss how the two boys are making decisions that are pulling them in different directions. The book discusses how the choices we make can separate a relationship. In the book Mark is selling drugs and Bryon morally objects to what he is doing. There is no middle ground for them to reach agreement on, they start to drift apart. They don’t know how to come back to being friends after the change in their relationship has taken place. I think I understand how you can reach a point in your relationship where you are not connecting on the same level anymore. The friendship you had changed and you have reached a point where you cant go back to what once was. This is when you know that terminating the friendship is the best choice.
There are stages you experience that lead up to knowing that the relationship isn’t working. One of the stage is circumscribing which is where the communication is restricted, constrained. The people in the relationship choose to only discuss safe topics, that wont lead into an argument. The next stage is stagnating is where the people in the relationship are going through the motions. The communication has reached a standstill. The next stage is avoiding where people in the relationship will avoid talking to each other or spending time together. The last stage is the termination stage, which marks the end of the relationship. ( Interpersonal pg 249) I know that I went through these stages when my friendship started to deteriorate. I think we uses these stages in the beginning as a coping mechanism . I thought if we didn’t discuss the elephant in the room than somehow we be to restore our friendship. It only cause more tension between us. We use theses signs to help us realizes the relationship, is not working.
After you go through this difficult process of ending an relationship or friendship, you should give yourself some time to grieve. I spend a lot of time grieving over the loss of that friendship and not sure what with all the memorabilia I had from the years of friendship. It seems trivial but its difficult to take the pictures you have and cards and others things that remind you of that person and put in box away, for you not have to look at it. I was sad knowing that all the future plans we made weren’t going to happen and that we no longer going to be apart of each other lives. It takes times to reach a level of closure and to come to a level of peace with the losses of that relationship. It been almost a year since the friendship ended and I think I am in better place, but its still very much a process. There are days where it hits me, where I feel the loss of the friendship all over again.
I think my goal is to reach accpentance and peace with the loss. I learn though this experince a great deal about myself and the other people in my life. I learn that with this loss, I strenghten other bonds in my life. There a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that concludes it best, “ “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
1.
Though every experience there is always a choice to be made. You make a decisions on how you face every challenge, the future career you will have or what you are going to wear today. We make these choices because of our wants, our needs and how this might be best for us. We are constantly faced with difficult decisions. We try to make the best choice in every challenge we are faced with.
I recently had to make a difficult decision about childhood friendship. The relationship was no longer a healthy friendship. I held on for a long time thinking that we could regain what we loss along the way. We became different people and I realized that it was time to stop avoiding it and discuss it. There is a quote by Winston Churchill , “ Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is.” I think after we sat down and talked ,that we reached the conclusion that it was time to say goodbye.
There is this scene in a television show, “My So- Called Life, where Angela and Rayanne recently ended their friendship. They are at play practice for “ Our Town, and in the scene they are practicing the main character has died and she realized how precious every moment is and how she took what she had for granted. In this scene Rayanne and Angela are using the play’s dialogue to say goodbye to their friendship. I can relate to how difficult and painful the situation is when you have to say goodbye I think the scene uses indirect communication to get the point across. There is nothing being directly said about Rayanne and Angela relationship. The lines in the play they are practicing are making an indirect perceptive on their relationship. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lz65pr4_qo)
Twenty-one percent of friendships that have ended was because , you or your friend has changed.( Interpersonal pg,239) When I had this conversation with my friend I used the direct method of communication to end the friendship. It makes your intent obvious about where the communication is leading. Our discussion was open and honest about
our feelings and thoughts regarding our friendship. ( Interpersonal pg, 240) I think that ending any kind of relationship is difficult and I feel that the best approach is the be direct. Some relationship end because we want or need different things or your lives are going in different directions. I ended my friendship because we were not getting what we need from the other. We are constantly taking inventory of our relationship, thinking how we can better the relationship and our communication within that relationship.
In the book,” That was Then this is Now,” by S.E. Hinton is about two foster brothers who are growing up and growing apart . The book discuss how the two boys are making decisions that are pulling them in different directions. The book discusses how the choices we make can separate a relationship. In the book Mark is selling drugs and Bryon morally objects to what he is doing. There is no middle ground for them to reach agreement on, they start to drift apart. They don’t know how to come back to being friends after the change in their relationship has taken place. I think I understand how you can reach a point in your relationship where you are not connecting on the same level anymore. The friendship you had changed and you have reached a point where you cant go back to what once was. This is when you know that terminating the friendship is the best choice.
There are stages you experience that lead up to knowing that the relationship isn’t working. One of the stage is circumscribing which is where the communication is restricted, constrained. The people in the relationship choose to only discuss safe topics, that wont lead into an argument. The next stage is stagnating is where the people in the relationship are going through the motions. The communication has reached a standstill. The next stage is avoiding where people in the relationship will avoid talking to each other or spending time together. The last stage is the termination stage, which marks the end of the relationship. ( Interpersonal pg 249) I know that I went through these stages when my friendship started to deteriorate. I think we uses these stages in the beginning as a coping mechanism . I thought if we didn’t discuss the elephant in the room than somehow we be to restore our friendship. It only cause more tension between us. We use theses signs to help us realizes the relationship, is not working.
After you go through this difficult process of ending an relationship or friendship, you should give yourself some time to grieve. I spend a lot of time grieving over the loss of that friendship and not sure what with all the memorabilia I had from the years of friendship. It seems trivial but its difficult to take the pictures you have and cards and others things that remind you of that person and put in box away, for you not have to look at it. I was sad knowing that all the future plans we made weren’t going to happen and that we no longer going to be apart of each other lives. It takes times to reach a level of closure and to come to a level of peace with the losses of that relationship. It been almost a year since the friendship ended and I think I am in better place, but its still very much a process. There are days where it hits me, where I feel the loss of the friendship all over again.
I think my goal is to reach accpentance and peace with the loss. I learn though this experince a great deal about myself and the other people in my life. I learn that with this loss, I strenghten other bonds in my life. There a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that concludes it best, “ “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
1.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
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