I’ve been thinking a lot, which can be annoying. I’ve also been doing more Tarot readings on myself which is enjoyable until I’m forced to think, which is what the readings are good at. I still enjoy it, but like most people I don’t like being confronted with things I’ve been avoiding thinking about, with things I’d rather keep avoiding.
Recently I’ve been spending my time thinking about relationships. Not really romantic, though I probably should since I’m giving that whole dating app thing a try (I’m very bad at it, it keeps logging me out because I’m not actively using it) but platonic and what people generally think of platonic relationships.
I put a lot of love and energy into my platonic relationships. I acknowledge that there is a difference between romantic and platonic relationships and that there are certain things you get out of a relationship with a partner versus a friend, but I don’t see one as being more important than the other. They are two incredibly different types of love but each is just as valid and important to have in your life, one shouldn’t overpower the other. And when it seems you are perpetually single, platonic relationships become very important because it’s really the only relationships you have outside of familial. But despite numerous tumblr posts hashing out the importance of platonic relationships and reminding people about how important they are, romantic relationships are still recognized as the more valid relationship.
I’ve always been told that I’ll understand this once I’m in a relationship but I’m not sure that I want to. Why would I want to obsess over someone so much that I forget to send a cat meme to my friends? To be so infatuated with another person that you disregard your relationships with everyone else in your life? I know it’s not really forgetting, it’s just pushing people to the side. And I know this isn’t done purposely, it’s just that this new person is exciting and giving you things a platonic relationship can’t. I just don’t understand the point of it. Or maybe to be more truthful, I’m afraid that I would ever become so obsessed with someone that I would forget all the other people that I love.
Look at that sad horse.
A card I pull often when doing my tarot readings on myself is the Five of Cups. I’ve grown familiar with its meaning, what it’s trying to tell me, and what I don’t want to think about. The Five of Cups represents grief, loss, and regret and predicts a time where a relationship with someone may end or change and the sadness that comes with that. The Five of Cups ends by asking the reader what expectations they place on people, if maybe what they expect is too much.
I don’t know that I agree that wishing for platonic relationships to be seen as just as important as romantic ones, but I do agree that (maybe) I need to think about what I expect of people and maybe lower them. It’s a fine line because I don’t expect to be the centre of someone’s world in a platonic relationship. I just want people to remember that I am here, that I still care, that I am not just there for them when they are single or lonely. But perhaps that means for more patience on my part, to let people get infatuated and love deeply and not get annoyed by it. I live more with my head than my heart (a flaw, I know that my heart is just as important as my head and need to learn to listen to it more) and so seeing people act this way is hard for me. It’s also hard because so many people around me have been infatuated, have been obsessed, have pushed me to the side and I’ve seen what happens when the love ends, when things become ordinary, and when things end. I’ve been forced to pick up the pieces, to keep things stable (like always) and I don’t want to do it again.
(I don’t want to keep doing this.)
So I don’t really know where to go from here. I know I have to think of what kind of expectations I put on others and if it’s too much, and maybe it is for certain types of people and not others. Maybe that’s something I have to learn about too, who can fill these expectations and who can’t, and whether or not I just expect too much in the first place. I hope I don’t, but I know it’s easy to put someone on a pedestal. To expect so many great things and to raise someone higher and higher. But that’s the thing about pedestal’s, the higher you go the more unsteady they become, and it can be a far and painful fall down.
(Picture of Five of Cups found here.)
Sarah O'Connor 