Taking for granted
Aimless terrace walks are often accompanied by introspection and today was no different.
I went to the terrace to make a call to a friend of six years; after five straight days of “Call you today?” “Yeah anytime!” “Sorry, don’t think I can talk today. Call you tomorrow, ok?”. I know I hadn’t called mostly because it was not convenient to call anytime I felt like it for lack of space. And when I had the time and space, I decided to prioritize something else, someone else. There was no pressing need for either of us to talk, but here’s the thing: would I have cancelled a phone call five times straight had it been a different person? Why was I okay doing this with someone I call a good friend, someone who’s always made time for me and assumes the best each time I cancel simply because it wasn’t most convenient? Shouldn’t I be more careful with relationships like these?
Given that I owe so much to a few deeply-rooted friendships, I tend to think about them a lot - both as a concept and in relation to me. I think they’ve been amazing because neither of us takes each other for granted, most times atleast. I thought it was because we’re aware of how we don’t need the other. That we show up, invest time because we want to. It’s a choice. That’s perhaps why I appreciate them so much. But some of them, when you’ve had them in your life for long enough leave you with an illusion of permanence which is good in many, many ways but troublesome in others — you forget that they’ve chosen to be that good to you, for you.
What about family — blood-related, but also those you choose to call family because you love them or they, you — am I really there for them? It’s hardly a choice, I would have thought; it’s a near certainty we’ll be there for each other when it comes to the big things: successes and failures; in sickness...but what about ‘in health’? Most of life is a culmination of small moments that don’t fit under the labels of successes, failures or sickness. Like an afternoon when you’re on your phone or laptop doing nothing of great importance, and you see your mom chopping vegetables but it doesn’t occur to you to offer help. Or when someone dear wants to talk to you simply because they felt like it, but you’re having a great time partying so you tell them you’ll call back in an hour, except it’s the next evening already. These are choices. Paying for hospital bills may not be a choice, but them asking you what flavour of noodles you want when they are shopping is. Love and life, are in these mostly uneventful moments and I realised I’ve gone through a lot of them being absent, or passive — and what I finally understand is called ‘taking for granted’. A recipe for reaching a point where you’ll want to travel back in time just to be present in the true sense of the word.
