Challenges: Growing

Gentle readers, your MatchGirl has written here before about some challenges that Boyfriend and I face as we negotiate his current unemployed status. And I have written about the challenges we face as we learn each other in a living together environment.

Every relationship goes through tough times.


But here's the thing. Relationships are not the stuff of, as Boyfriend calls them, RoCos. No. Relationships are work. Actually, any relationship, romantic or platonic, requires some effort. They need to be nurtured. They need to be cared for. They need to be worked on.

Think of it like a garden (or houseplants if you lack outdoor space, as we do). Sure, the plants will grow if they get a little sun and a little water. But they won't thrive unless you pay attention to them. Unless you pull off the brown leaves and angle the pots towards the sun and make sure that there are no bugs chomping away on the good stuff.

Perhaps the metaphor is a little rough. Or maybe too obvious. But these things come from truths.

One of your MatchGirl's favorite books is Voltaire's Candide (I highly recommend, if you've never read or if you haven't read since high school, picking it up).

In the 1950s, with a lot of amazing contributors, it was turned into an operetta. And even if a musical is not your thing, whether from a great book or not, there are some good words in the final song, "Let Our Garden Grow":

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please;
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

We're neither pure nor wise nor good;
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house, and chop our wood,
And make our garden grow.

No one says it's not good to dream, dear readers, but, really, isn't it some much better to do the work and actually make things happen?

The same is true of relationships. Nothing is perfect. But if you both do the work, pay attention, it can be so very close.