Life is a Series of Stages

I hung out with my friend Brian yesterday who broke up with his boyfriend Mark two weeks ago. It puts me in a funny mood to hang out with someone just after a breakup. Hopefully all he perceived was a supportive friend, but on the inside it made me a bit sad. Each breakup I hear about yanks at something in my gut that is losing faith in the idea of long-term relationships.

The only model for a long relationship that I have is my mother's parents. They married when they were 20/21, and stayed together for the rest of their lives. For some reason, however, that value wasn't passed to their children. Mom had three marriages, and her brother and sister each had more than that. I'm the first to admit that they had some bad marriages and that staying in those relationships was probably not the best choice, but the fact of the matter is that the relationships I saw in my youth have all ended.

I had my first boyfriend at 18 for 5 months, and then my second at 20 for 14 months. When Matt and I broke up I was 21, and it was the first time I realized that I might be starting the same pattern that my mother's generation had experienced. It scared me. But as I pulled myself through the breakup, I thought back on something my mom had told me when I was a teenager. I can't remember now what brought it up, but I remember mom telling me that life is a series of stages, and that you have to expect changes. Maybe for one stage in your life, a relationship is what you need, but then in the next stage you don't need it anymore. It made sense at the time. And it was comforting as I broke up with Matt.

But then I fell in love with Lenny, and then Scott, and now I'm single again. And sometimes now I think about the implications of mom's statement. If I accept that statement as truth, then do I prevent myself from finding a relationship that lasts through the stages? If I internalized that concept in my 20's, then do I approach relationships now as if they are temporary?

I guess what got me thinking about it this weekend is that I am developing a crush on a friend of mine. We have only known each other for a couple months, but I liked him right off the bat and was really excited about getting to be friends with him. Then when I stopped seeing Daniel, the line between friendship and flirtation blurred. I have been keeping him at arms length because I didn't want to risk losing him as a friend, but as I laid with him taking a nap today I realized that the fear I have of losing him as a friend is based on my assumption that if we date, it will end. That assumption is tied to my belief in mom's theory of stages. But I think now that the assumption of relationships being temporary is a disservice to myself, and that it is not the most productive outlook when you're single and dating. Why not give a new relationship the possibility of permanance?

For many, life is indeed a series of stages. But I kind of like the idea of Happily Ever After. I hope it doesn't only exist in fairy tales. Or if it does, I hope I find my prince.