Rubber bands

November 8, 2019

I’m a believer in rubber bands, they are amazing little tools, they hold mail together, can hold up a rebel zipper on jeans when attached to the button, they can be put on a wrist to remind us of something we have to do, they can even be fun to make paper missiles go a little farther when you’re a kid – but most of all I love rubber bands because they always end up back in the same shape even when we stretch them (well most of the time). They are versatile and come in all shapes and sizes for special purposes. I liken relationships of people to rubber bands. Relationships have ebbs and flow, much like the stretching of a rubber band and sometimes the flow is more prominent then the ebb, but usually for good reason to the person that’s flowing.

Sometimes people just need a break, they need to stretch and figure things out. It can seem hurtful to us or like we’ve been abandoned, but that usually isn’t the case. Kids for instance, often do this to parents. When they are teenagers, they want independence, then life hits and it’s the parents they come back to for advice and shelter from all that scares and overwhelms them. Husbands and wives do this often simply from the dynamics of change, going from unmarried to married, or from married to having children, or from children to empty nesting, or not feeling quite like they did when they were young and feeling inadequate. Usually stretching in those times is a part of personal growth, the rubber band in those cases doesn’t always come back to the same exact shape, but usually because we’ve grown in some important way.

When someone stretches away from you, it’s important to understand why but more important to let them go (for awhile). What is awhile? Well that’s unique to every person. It can be days, weeks, months or years, but eventually, because love is in the mix they will return, never doubt that.