Relationship Reflection

 Relationships are a very important part of my life. The person that I am today is because of my relationships. The most important relationship of my life is the relationship that I have with my family. The family relationship goes beyond my immediate family, but my extended family as well. My parents raised me and my brothers and sister to be close. They raise us to put family first. They believe in the saying “blood is thicker than water”.  Four of us were raised in the house together and we are very close in age. I am the oldest of the four and the youngest is only four years younger, so growing up we were each other’s friends. We did almost everything together. I had a lot of cousins because my mom came from a large family; there were 13 of them. The cousins that lived close by would all hang together. Many of the things that I learned I learned from my family. My parents taught me everything from how to feed myself to how to drive. Growing up my older cousins taught or helped me with things that my parents may not have been able to. One example, my older cousin taught me to wear makeup because my mother did not wear makeup. The relationship with my families has its challenges at times. We are individuals with different personalities, ideas and opinions and that can create difference among us. Sometimes we do not communicate with each other the way we should, but the good thing about my family is that we never allow anything to break up our relationship.

Another important relationship is the relationship I have with my sorority sister and friend from college. We do not see each other every day, but we know that if one of us needs each other we are there. It does not matter if it was financially, mentally or spiritually. I cannot say that we agreed with each other all of the time. There was a time when we were angry with each other for a long time, but because we loved each other like sisters we were still there for each other in spite of our anger. We realized that communication is the key for any relationship to be successful.

Relationships are important to everyone. We grow as people because of the positive relationships that we have and of course, every relationship takes work. The most important thing in every relationship or partnership is communication. The relationships that we make and build in our personal lives will help us in our build professional relationships.