I have long liked the analogy of having "emotional wells."

The people who come and go through our days and lives have the capacity of draining our wells, leaving them pretty much neutral or filling our wells. As you well know, sometimes it's one-way traffic, from you to them with nothing flowing back.

It frightens me, sometimes, perhaps on account of the subtext that if all people are looking to do is take from the well then we live in an incredibly selfish and self-involved world.

Not that I am holding myself exempt from occasionally being self-involved!

Friendships are interesting things... as the years have rolled by, perhaps what has changed the most for me is how I look at the elements of friendships, pushing the "common interests" further towards the back while bringing "common energies" closer to the front.

With families, we're sold the popular myth about how "blood binds" but it is little more than a myth with little function. I have a $hit experience in that domain, and with more than a little sadness have to confess that the only two family members I ever felt truly close and connected to both committed suicide... Which could mean that I am either mentally ill, or I see things most people miss.

I prefer my chosen family members...