(no subject)

[ewt]

Thanks, xiphias, for having the courage to start this.

It's the Ten Days of Repentance, the period of time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when we go into overdrive to try to repair any damaged relationships we have with each other.

If there is anything which I did over the past year which hurt or upset you, please let me know. If you want to discuss it publically, please leave a comment below; if you'd like to discuss it privately, email me at [livejournal at ewt dot anarres dot org].

I will see whether I can make amends, and make right anything which I have done wrong.

I don't promise that I can. But I do promise that I will try.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Hmm. For me, it's not that you DON'T give presents on Christmas, or on someone's birthday -- it's just that, around those times, you go out of your way to think of what a good present would be. The rest of the year, if you see something that would make a good present, sure, you get it for the person. . . but you're not going to set aside time to specifically think about presents unless you have a reason to. At least, that's how it works for me.

Similarly, when I notice that I've hurt someone or have a damaged relationship, I repair it immediately. But now is the time of year when I set aside time to sit down and really LOOK at all my relationships, and see if there's damage there that I've not noticed, or see if I've hurt people unintentionally, and been unaware of it. And it's the time that I set aside to really do work on the difficult ones -- the relationships that, the rest of the year, you just say, "It's not worth it, it's too much work, there's too much damage there to even be worth trying."

Frankly, for those last ones, they're often just too broken to fix, but at least there's a time of year when I try to, anyway.

So, even though one SHOULD be romantic, and giving presents, and repairing relationships all throughout the year, it can be still, nonetheless, valuable to set aside specific times to pay especial attention to those things. I find it hard to be doing as well as I should in all the things I should be doing well at, at the same time. At least I can have one time a year when I'm paying the kind of attention to whatever it is that I really SHOULD be paying all the time, but just don't have the time or energy to maintain.