(Disclaimer: Please note, this is not an endorsement to watch The City as doing so may result in a fat ass and the lost of brain cells).
Who says nothing valuable can be learned from watching The City. For those of you who have better things to do like solve world hunger, The City is the spin off of The Hills, a “reality” show that sucks people into the buffoonery of rich, 20-somethings lives. On this week’s episode, Whitney is down because her boyfriend Jay is leaving to go on tour for two months and didn’t tell her until 5 days before he was leaving. She’s at a work party sitting by alone sulking, when Diane Von Furstenberg (Whitney works for DVF) sits down and asks her what’s wrong. Whitney goes into the sob story about Jay and how sad she is. Just when I’m about grab my laptop, Diane recaptures my attention and shares this jewel of a quote.
“Absence is to love what the wind is to fire. When it’s a small fire, the wind blows it out. When it’s a big fire, the wind intensifies it.”
When she said that, I thought, “Man, what a great analogy”! I’m not big on quotes reciting quotes, but I love to collect them and this one was worth writing down. I’d just had a conversation about long distance relationships and it seemed so timely. When it comes to relationships, we tend to get so caught up in the initial excitement that we will fight to keep it going no matter what the situation. We are not patient. We often think that the worse thing that can happen to a relationship is for one person to move away. I am guilty of this and am learning to be more patient when dating and to let things play out as it should. I’m a woman of action, which results in me trying to make things happen. What Diane said made it plain. Distance in a relationship is a test with two extreme grades: Pass (Summa Cum Laude) or Fail (Get kicked out school). What I take away from this is viewing distance as a time to reflect and assess the relationship versus viewing it as an inconvenience that is putting a potential roadblock to the relationship. Plain and simple, strong flames survive.