Olivia De Recat created the amazingly simple but impactful image below. There are several types of relationships and many more that could be added. There is beauty in both the simplicity and the depth of the drawing. When I first looked at it, I thought of this quote from the movie Fight Club: “On a sufficiently long timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” The picture reminds us that every relationship is finite, and that is both sad and powerful.
As I thought about it more, I realized that the drawing also shows how many ways our lives are touched by so many different types of relationships. While we often try to process our relationships as good or bad, there is no judgment on the quality of a relationship based on its temporal proximity. There are only differences in how we experience our interactions with different people at different times in our lives.
It also reminds me of how many different marriages there are. As a divorce mediator, I am often asked if there are any trends I see in people who are getting divorced. The reality is that every relationship is different and we are fortunate enough to be close to everyone in our lives, even if that closeness varies over time.
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How would you draw your relationships?
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