One clear conclusion to which I have come in recent weeks is that friendships can be fragile. Even one sentence not adequately thought through can cause a person to go running and the previous 100 sentences are, it seems, soon forgotten. Maybe there were 4 or 5 things wrong with my previous 100 sentences but I wasn't told so I continue in blissful ignorance. If I am fortunate some well meaning person will alert me to maybe 2-3 of the things that I said that did the damage and if I am fortunate the person that ran off will return although this isn't always the case. The problem is that there is a danger of over compensating for the loss and if somebody doesn't reply more can be read into it than simple reluctance to communicate: they could be busy or away or not very good at sharing their feelings.
In the words of TS Eliot from Ash Wednesday 'teach me to care and not to care'. In other words care enough about other people to demonstrate love but don't allow personal feelings to be too upset if somebody kicks you in the teeth as a result of caring. It was Eliot again who said in his Four Quartets that 'Humankind can't take too much reality'. I have to accept too that I share in that state myself. For not only is it true that we should 'be gentle with (our)selves' but we owe it to others to be gentle with them too.
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