Fall by the wayside

I chanced upon the Facebook page of a guy I used to date back in college. From the looks of it, he’s happily married, has kids, a family guy. Seeing him brought back memories of the time we used to date.

I remember the first time I met him. He had asked for my number from my friend and he also asked to be introduced. I didn’t like him at first because he drinks and smokes. As a general rule, I tried to stay away from men with vices. Not only am I turned off by it; as a Christian, I also couldn’t agree nor tolerate the lifestyle. When he was courting me, he put his best foot forward. He tried to change. He was the persistent kind, willing to win me over. He was the kind who’ll drop by my place unannounced, knowing I was a girl who liked surprises. He likes driving for me and I found him to be very charming. His charm did win me over, but only for a short period. The stark differences between us would eventually surface, something charm couldn’t possibly remedy.

I remember us: the fights, the drama, the good times, the bad ones. And then, we just drifted apart. We’d catch up years later, only to have a more bitter ending. Now, we don’t even talk. We’ve become complete strangers.

I was looking at his pictures, thinking about those years we were at each other’s lives, and I found myself asking, “why didn’t it work?” Was it due to the fights, the differences between us, the circumstances around us? Was it because that’s how things were supposed to be in the long run? Or was it because we decided for ourselves not to make things work anymore? Wayne Dyer said our lives are a sum total of all the choices we make. Both of us could have chosen to stay together, even just as friends. But we chose not to. Choice is a powerful thing, perhaps that’s why when God gave man free will, He did so at the greatest risk.

I guess what I’m saying is, I have to be intentional in making all my relationships work. I have to keep choosing to fight for the people I should fight for, to love the people I should love, to keep the relationships I have, and not let them fall by the wayside. So many of our relationships are wreaked by a lack of choice, or by the wrong choices. I don’t want to have to come across an old friend’s picture somewhere in Facebook and wonder, “what happened? Why aren’t we friends anymore?”