Someone once explained to me the difference between a tie and a bond. You see, a bond indicates a chosen, honest love without jealousy or ill-will. A tie, however, indicates an obligation, as if you are owed something by someone. Well I am in the process of breaking ties. I am mourning friends that I have lost, mourning love, chances, anything that has left a scar inside of me. But what about those ties that started out as bonds? Those connections that are lingering between the two definitions are the most difficult to endure.
Right now I am lingering between ties and bonds with people I once thought would be with me forever. I was once so afraid that there was something wrong with me because I would constantly grow out of my friends and move on. I watched movies about life long friends and asked myself “why can’t I have that?”. Then I began to question what was true for me and started pushing aside my feelings just to try and sustain this new group of friends that I wanted so badly to be the ones I could stand next to at 50 years old and say “we’ve been friends since high school and we’re still going strong”. But something happens when you start moving toward adulthood and self realization at warped speed. As you move faster, the others around you seem to move slower. And the slower they move, the more apparent their faults, and insecurities, and immaturity, and hang-ups become. Then you begin to question yourself, wondering if your life has just taken a terrible turn. You look at the wonderful things that may have happened and feel guilty for the fact that others cannot be happy for you. Like it is your responsibility to make them happy. And then, at that moment, an uninvested party says, “you are not responsible for them, you have a right to be happy, and if they are not happy for you they must not be very good friends”. Suddenly a bond becomes a tie. A restricting, obligatory tie.
The ties begin to grow and strengthen, all along weakening the bonds. And then begins the process of undoing the workings of letting that person/those people into your outer circle, then inner circle, then making them part of your family. It all begins to go backwards, but it is so hard to do, that most people just cut the others out of their lives for good.
Therein lies the conflict ahead of me. How does one take a bond that has become a tie and start from the beginning? I am moving so fast that I cannot even see clearly anymore. So how do I know? How do I know what is a tie and what is a bond? How do I know who is in my life for all time…or just for a season?
“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”
To the members of the hearts with footprints club, you have been such a lovely audience.
