A person's life is very much similar to a story book. It is usually divided into various chapters, each with a main idea being introduced. The story usually begins with a fairly straight forward and simple introduction and ends off with a conclusion which is often the result of the development of the many climax and anti-climax in between the introduction and the conclusion.

Sometimes I wonder how far I am from the conclusion of my own story. Am I in a new chapter of my life or am I still stuck in the chapter before? How many chapters have I written in the past 18 months or have I been writing in the same chapter since 4 years ago? I must have been an awful writer. I didn't learn my paragraphing skills too well.

During a recent drink-a-chat session, a good friend of mine and his mate witnessed a scenario (classified as strange/inappropriate in their context) and their analysis of the happenings led to the conclusion that whoever holds the 'upper hand' after the end of a r/ship shall direct where the story goes from there. To avoid this from happening, one should therefore, not stay friends with their ex-es.

This conclusion hit me hard. Keeping the friendship after love ended has always been my way to show that I treasured what went on between us and will continue to treasure the friendship that survived the ‘wreckage’. In fact, I don't think I can ever stop caring for the people who were once so special to me and always being there for them is a promise I've never fail to keep. But the analysis I was presented with and the conclusion made was on the contrary to what I believe to be the most ideal all along.

Do they really still want me in their lives? Would my friendship be a stumbling block that keeps them from moving on to their next chapter in life or would it actually cause me to carry on in chapters that should have been closed? And what about holding the 'upper hand'? Why would an 'upper hand' exist if it is already the end? Did an 'upper hand' even exist in a relationship in the first place? These questions kept floating in my mind.

My good friend told me that the basis of all relationships is the 'upper hand'. It is the power that one has over another that causes the latter to go the extra mile and sometimes, even go against one's instinctive will. Well, I could appreciate the point made but I would rather call this the power of 'love'.

The concept is simple. The feeling of love towards a person makes this person different from the rest. It makes you want to do things that would make him/her feel special. And if the feeling is mutual, he/she would do things to make you feel unique too. If you continue to love, you'll continue doing these whether or not the feeling is mutual. Of course, I can't explain why love happens and when love will stop and I doubt anybody could. Some love might stop when they stop receiving, while some, although rare, might be totally unconditional. Some love continues even when lovers chose to be friends. This, I'll call it, love in friendship. In general, we care for different people to different extent. There are people who are special and impt to us but not in the romantic sense. And because they are special and impt, we do things to show that we care for them. This is simply the power of love in friendship. Similarly, the existent of such love could be dependent on certain factors or could also be unconditional.

Thus, I do not see why there is an 'upper hand' in the picture. Having an 'upper hand', to me, is having a hold over someone and there's usually a negative connotation attached to it, similar to that to that of a threat. So if love, be it romantic or platonic, is out of free will, why is there an 'upper hand' to talk about before, during and let alone, after a relationship?

We are primarily responsible to decide how we want to shape our climax and end our stories even though they are also affected by how people in our lives decide for theirs. For me, I've decided to love my ex-es as friends and it's up to them to accept my friendship. Yes, I may be doing them a huge favour by backing off but ultimately, they do have a choice to say no to my friendship and I would take no offence. I may be able to define my chapters more clearly by getting out of their lives but I'll rather not for I would never give up these precious friendships for all the money in the world. They're definitely people who I'll like to write about in every chapters of my life.