Another year, another set of lessons learned. My heart sliced a little thinner through the good and the bad but I don’t regret a thing. With what we are dealt we make ourselves ready for whatever the future may hold.

Last year I built a collection a lessons based on a series of relationships, assigning each a label and specific cultivation. What I experienced over the past year made me realize the folly in this. A person does not hold a single label and you often learn a multitude of things about that person and of yourself.  That being said I’ll share what I have perceived.

This girl has no label because no single thing can explain her nor should she be explained. She is a plethora of things; a human being with her own set of experiences and beliefs.  To know her fully would take a lifetime and more.

“Communication is key.”  We’ve all heard that but through this experience I finally grasped it.  We can’t assume to know what the other is thinking or that they know what you are feeling. Be vocal with your concerns and you’ll be surprised with the outcome. Open and honest communication is what builds the strongest relationships.

Everyone has their faults, but it is not another person’s duty to try and “fix” someone.  It’s never an intentional act but once you step back you can catch where you might have been comparing that special someone to yourself. Past difficulties are what shape us and make us the people we are today. Even a shared experience can be interpreted differently. Is it really fair to compare someone to you or who you were. Similarities in your pasts may exist with what someone is going through now, but that help you try and offer can be unwanted and misconstrued as something else entirely. We all arrive at our own conclusions and who’s to say which is right. Stand back, they can handle it on their own so they can fully recognize what needs to be understood.

Timing is everything. As much as you can try to work through a difficult situation, sometimes it’s just not meant to be. Maybe just not right now, maybe not ever. The important thing to remember is that you are not the only one involved. If you are ready for a relationship that doesn’t mean the other person is. What you’ve gone through, what you’ve realized, they may have yet to. Or, maybe they have and are on a completely different stage of life.  The right one will come in due time. It could be someone from your past, or someone you have yet to meet. But that’s the beauty of life. Life is fluid and nothing is certain.  Everything is relative. What and whom our future holds is beyond us.

Through experience we become wiser but that does not mean we are wise. Though a romantic relationship takes two, the true relationship you should build is that within yourself.