The Undiscovered Country

By Friedrich Nietzsche

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

“Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.”

Fighting with a friend is never fun. There's always the fear words spoken in anger will be the last words spoken, and each will turn away forever burned and embittered; to die never having made amends. Both will carry the pain of believing the other is full of hate, never able to forgive or be forgiven.

These are burdens no one should carry. They only grow heavier as time goes by.

The last few days were rough as I had an unfortunately public disagreement with a friend who also happens to be a sister-in-law. She sent me a few private messages expressing her angst about how different we were, and that (I inferred) those differences were irreconcilable. From her words, I again inferred we would have to stop being friends because of those differences, which I feared would negatively effect our husband's relationship. I explained this further in my previous entry "All in The Family"  so I won't get into any more detail about that here.

She apparently needed a few days to calm down, because yesterday afternoon, she sent me more private messages basically expressing her sorrow over what happened, and that she hoped it wouldn't tear apart our husband's friendship, because they've always been close.

Based on her words, it seemed to me that she was giving up on any possibility of a continued friendship on our part. We simply didn't have enough in common anymore.

I don't hold to that by any stretch.

Many of my friends and family members are on the opposite political and religious spectrum, and I get along with them just fine. We can sometimes discuss those differences, other times we have to avoid them.

I even told her, “Though we may disagree, that doesn't effect my opinion or love for you, either. Like you said, we simply have very different outlooks on certain subjects.

"That's not necessarily a bad thing. Aside from our husbands, I know there are many things we still have in common; we just have to find out what they are. I'm kinda looking forward to discovering them. You with me?”

She seemed to like the idea.

Hence the first quote by Nietzsche. My sister-in-law and I went through a rough patch that could have killed our relationship. Because it didn't, we can now build a stronger one based on a mutual understanding that though we be different on certain things, we are the same on many others.

The second quote I ran into while searching for the exact wording of the first. I had to add it, because it also applies here. Strong relationships aren't built upon agreeing on everything. It's those very differences that can make friendships more interesting and deepen our understanding of the world and each other. Sometimes they can't be reconciled except to agree to disagree, but that's when friends choose to close their eyes. They do so in order to protect that friendship, because while we may not have a choice when it comes to love, we do when it comes to friendship.

Few things in this world are more beautiful and profound than that.