A relationship through choice or one with obligation. If you love someone and they place no obligation on your shoulders - it means no less of an obligation. Loving someone brings its own responsibilities. In you are with someone where there are stronger obligations - the ties are perhaps also stronger and deeper. And you still have the choice.

Thinking this evening...

Each relationship is filled with the sound of words not uttered.

In one kind of relationship, we keep our mouths shut as we don't want to hurt the other, but mainly in order to forge out some room for our own selves and thoughts.

In the other kind of relationship, we leave some things unsaid in order to protect the relationship, which can sometimes be at a cost to ourselves.

The silence in either instance can be hard for someone like me. But I understand the necessity of the unspoken. It gives messages in itself.

I know that in my case, from both sides, its the silence of a snow storm - calming, blanketing and safe. This type of quiet, the second kind, is the one that also allows us the opportunity to be ourselves. Which in turn lets out a slow trickle of trust and openness to say the things which are normally left unsaid and buried.

It doesn't work when its the other way around. "Romantic" Poppy knows what relationship she would like and what she has.