Heal the word

Oh, just been reading a post on a message board, advising people to make up any rifts they have within their families; their relatives had a falling-out and one of them died before it was resolved.

Yeah, well, it's all very well, and it is a good theory, but sometimes things are unfixable. If it's a trivial argument, it's obvious you should try to resolve it and not let something petty stand between you.

But if it's deep-seated, sometimes there is no resolution and it's trite & annoying to say make an effort, swallow your pride. Sometimes you've already swallowed your pride so much, you've none left.

Some things require both sides to co-operate. You can paint over the cracks if you're both willing to pretend they're not there. Sometimes the other person won't go even that far. Sometimes the other person is willing and it works for a while, but you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop and one day the drunken phonecalls and abusive texts start rolling in.

You can accept that the other person is never going to live up to your expectations, and if you choose to keep them in your life, try to keep the bits that hurt you in a separate box. But that's not perfect, either. But you can't change people, so all you can do is try to protect yourself best you can.

I dunno, that post just pressed my buttons this morning. Learn from this, the poster seemed to be saying. It's all just stubbornness and pride. The way it was titled made it an imperative: "heal family rifts before it's too late" or some such.

But it isn't that easy.