I was on a plane coming back from Chicago a few weekends ago and caught the most stunning rainbow-colored sunset. As I looked out the airplane window, the symbolism of daylight, nighttime and sunset in the context of personal relationships became strikingly apparent.


Over the course of relationships with people we love, there are moments of light, clarity and joy. They are the moments that fill us up and truly make this life worthwhile. And then, there are inevitably moments of darkness and hardship. There are moments when we discover that we just need to give a particular relationship a rest- whether temporarily or indefinitely.

It’s the “sunsets” of relationships, though, that most intrigue me. Those moments of in between- of uncertainty about exactly what role two people should play in each other’s lives- are quite telling. How two people deal with the sunset moments exposes the depth and color of the relationship they share. It’s when you can quite readily see the dance two people do- how they move with one another, how they transition. Since much of life consists of change and transition, any lasting relationship must be able to navigate through ambiguity with grace and trust. So, it is the moments of uncertainty that reveal the strength of the love and bond between two people. 

Watching this particular sunset was a reminder that transition and uncertainty are inevitable. As uncomfortable as those moments can be, we must let them occur. We cannot avoid them, push them away, pretend they don’t exist. We have to let relationships change and take their natural shape- even if they do not wind up looking or feeling exactly as we imagined they would. It won’t always be easy. It won’t always be hard. Relationships are never static- and so how one looked and felt when it started will evolve into something possibly quite different over time.

When we allow ourselves to move past the discomfort that comes along with ambiguity, that’s when things become surprisingly clear. That’s when relationships grow and flourish. And challenging as they may be, the periods of transition- the sunsets- are often when beautiful rainbows appear.