One of the biggest personal challenges for me, in 2013, was figuring out  just what relationships mean to me.  It wasn’t as much a matter of “being in a relationship”, as determining the nature of relationships, in general.  So, I am at the point where I am thinking about the various ties I have with people.

Some think about “Who is my soul mate?”  A  person may go his/her entire earthly life without really feeling the presence of a soul mate.  Another person may deny to self that there is any such thing.  I feel there is, and I feel her presence daily, though she’s been gone from this physical plane for nearly three years.  I know others, including some of my best friends, who are still waiting to meet theirs, or perhaps to reconcile with one from whom they are estranged.

This brings me to friends.  There are several people with whom I feel a strong spiritual bond.  There are some, among this group, with whom I am almost “joined at the hip”, psychically.  A few people who have known me since childhood look at my friendships and figure that “Since _______ is a woman, you need to be careful.”  That ASSumption is missing the point, though I appreciate their concern.  To me, friends are those who can rely on me, in a pinch, and vice versa.  We have each others’ best interests at heart, and even if we have not met, physically, we know there are few barriers between us.

I am closer to my family, both nuclear and extended, now than at any time I can remember.  Extended family keeps getting bigger, and includes my birth family’s in-laws,  Penny’s family and their in-laws, all the people I have met in my travels and many in the Baha’i community whom I have yet to meet.  So, we’re talking a family of 10,000- plus.  Family is the most beautiful of institutions.  It can be the most messy of institutions, but anyone who has raised toddlers and teenagers knows that messes are part of life’s beauty.  Anyone who has seen an elder, or a disabled person, through their final years knows that messes are inevitable, and character-building.  Anyone who has anxiously watched a child morph into an adult power house knows that all the twists and turns, pushes and pulls are well worth the journey.

As 2013 moves from dusk to dark, I am in a good place.  I have no one who “desperately needs” me, and I’m not sure such desperation would be a good thing for either of us, anyway.  I feel love coming from many, and feel love towards them, as well.  Lust is not in the picture, and that’s a good thing.  Romance?  That happens when it happens, and I am just glad to have people with whom I can relax, and be myself. Besides, a little bit of me goes a very long way.

A wise man recently wrote that the best people in our lives ‘come like stray dogs, move evanescently through our lives, and disappear without a trace.’  I have had some do that, and will have more, I’m certain.  Regardless, each and all have been a pleasure, and I look forward to more such pleasure.