The Variations of Closeness: How would you draw your marriage over time?

Olivia De Recat created the amazingly simple but impactful image below. There are multiple types of relationships depicted, and yet many more that could be added. There is beauty in both the simplicity and the depth of the drawing. On my first viewing I thought of this quote from the movie Fight Club: "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." The image reminds us that every relationship is finite, and that is both sad and powerful.

Upon thinking about it more, I realized the drawing also shows how many ways our lives are touched by so many different types of relationships. While we often try to process our relationships as good or bad, there is no judgment on the quality of a relationship based on its closeness over time. There are just differences in how we experience our interactions with different people at different times in our lives.

That also reminds me of how many different marriages there are. As a divorce mediator I am often asked if there are trends that I see in the people that choose to get divorced. The reality is that every relationship is different, and we're lucky to be close to anyone in our lives even if that closeness varies over time.

View her other work and support the artist by clicking here.

How would you draw your relationships?

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