Dear Kid (and Bunny),

There are a zillion and three (I counted) different kinds of relationships.

Unless you are a hermit (or possibly a hermit crab), life is pretty much all about relationships.

~ Relationships with lab partners.

~ Relationships with roommates (we’ll talk about that another day).

~ Relationships with the barista who doesn’t know your name but knows that you drink low fat, sugar free soy macchiato with cinnamon and room for extra milk.

~ Relationships with family (which is an entirely different issue).

~ Relationships with a significant other (that’s tomorrow’s topic).

I am not a relationship expert by any stretch of the imagination. But here’s what I do know.

1. Good relationships are built on trust and respect.

If you don’t have trust and respect with a dog, you’re likely to get bitten. If you don’t have trust and respect with people, you’re likely to get bitten (although sometimes less literally).

If you don’t have trust and respect with a hairdresser, are you really going to let her cut your gorgeous locks or splatter on color that might turn your hair green?

If there isn’t mutual trust and respect chances are you have a problem.

2. Relationships take work.

It is amazing how movies skip over the basics of life. We watched Knight and Day (again) this weekend. At the end, Cameron Diaz more or less drugs and abducts Tom Cruise. They talk about how she changed him from a hospital gown into shorts, but they completely bleeped over the whole concept of a drugged guy going to the bathroom for a couple of days.

Movies also skip over the hard parts of relationships. I get it—who wants to watch real life? But just as real world people are not model thin, tall, and built like a clothes hanger, real relationships have bumps and bruises and misunderstandings and hurt feelings and disagreements and arguments and problems and…real life stuff. Real life doesn’t come with an airbrush to get rid of blemishes and it doesn’t come with a good editor to put all the difficult stuff on the cutting room floor.

Aretha included for your viewing pleasure.

Love, Mom

P.S. Bunny, stay tuned for Part II tomorrow.