Learning and Relearning

I was writing my last post, then I read a post somewhere else, then I started thinking...You can see where this is going right?
I recommend caffeine.

When two people begin a relationship, we learn how to interact with each other. Each person learns about the other, and we develop certain habits of interaction.

If we start out on an equal power footing, it becomes necessary to, in part, relearn how to interact as a couple.
I think it's fair to say that we are (hopefully), always growing and evolving together. Regardless of the dynamic of our relationships.

If we think of a relationship as its own little world (bear with me here), we realize that there are many key elements that combine to make it sustainable. Everything is symbiotic and there is a cyclical occurrence wherein each part makes the existence of the other possible.

Earth is an amazing and extremely complex expression of symbiosis. An amazing ecosystem that requires a delicate balance to keep all aspects functioning properly.
And so are relationships.

Occasionally change or outside elements disrupt the established symbiosis of a relationship and we have to adapt.

We interact as humans do--we laugh, cry, grieve, love, and live. We become...Us.
Then the concept of a shift in power rears its inspirational little head. And the cycle of our relationship as we know it to be changes.
We are what we were, yet we also become something else.

Suddenly, we are forced to relearn our interactions. We still laugh, cry, grieve, love, and live. But symbiosis as we knew it begins to take on a different form.

The balance and needs of our little ecosystem as we know it begin to change.
In the past, we learned about each other and how to interact. Then suddenly, we discover that we have a lot of relearning to do if we are going to keep our little ecosystem functioning.

Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that, because we have already learned something, we are done learning everything.

If we do not adapt to the process of relearning our relationships after a shift in the power dynamic, we upset that delicate balance of our personal little ecosystem. Because each part of our world is dependent on the other for proper functioning, the self-sustaining cycle crashes and can no longer support itself leaving us wondering what went wrong.
When really? We just forgot that evolution is a process which requires adaptations to be made along the way. Because we will never know all there is to know. And once we learn everything we need to know in this life? We are done living.

The process of learning and relearning each other and the necessities of our own little worlds is journey we all take in one form or another.
And sometimes? Sometimes it's more about the journey than it is about the destination.

Well, that and too much coffee maybe.