During the weekend away there were many discussions. My room mate was a marriage celebrant but had formerly had a job which included counselling. She is a widely read woman and produced our wedding skit. At the end of the weekend she also produced a two page document for us to take home. It is to help us look at our relationships.

I with many others here have a great deal of angst about the changing roles of relationships in our life post-strokes. This can apply equally to those who have had the strokes and those who care for them, and to a lesser extent to family and friends. When someone has a traumatic event in their lives relationships change. In some cases different people start to emerge as friends, old friendships break down, even marriages that seem rock solid can break down. Diane's theory didn't address this issue but explained relationships in an interesting way.

Working on concentric circles she classified the outer circle as strangers, those people we meet but briefly, say hello to, or a few sentences more and they leave our lives. We have these momentary meetings every day, in the shops, in the office, at the doctors. You can't go through life without them unless you are a recluse and just get your needs pushed through a slot in the door.

Then comes acquaintances, these can be from a brief period of encounter or someone you see regularly but never seek to have a friendship with. I see the lady in the greengrocers once a week, I have seen her for maybe four or five years, I know her name is Fay, she has a sick mother, a son who gives her some worries etc. I have a similar relationship with my lawn mowing man, some of my neighbours, even some of my relatives, they have never become more than just someone I meet occassionally for a brief exchange.

Next comes casual friends. These may also be colleagues, someone we see on a regular basis like fellow travellers on our transport route, someone we know quite a bit about, who we like and keep in contact with yet have never made them into a close personal friend, these can include our golf partners, other school mothers, closer neighbours etc. No-one knows why these perfectly lovely folk haven't come into our inner circle but for some reason they haven't. We usually have heaps of them.

Next comes family and close friends. These are the people we can usually rely on. They form the foundation of our world, they are usually our parents and grandparents ( or grandchildren), our children,siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins etc. They may include old school friends, next door neighbours, people from among our colleagues who we now confide in and value as a friend, someone from a club we belong to that we now bring home on a regular basis, people we ring more than twice a week. Some people can juggle a few friends and a large family but most of us can't and keep that inner circle small. People who think they have a huge number of friends may be mistaking casual friends for close friends or lumping them all in together.

Now she put Lover/Soul mate. I don't think I want to elaborate on that one. But some of you have a person that fills that role.

Then comes Spouse. For some of us didn't marry the lover/soulmate but someone else. According to some traditions this is the accepted order. The spouse has a different role in the scheme of things.

Then the centre of the circles is Ourself.

Now her theory to right relationships is that people can move in and out of these circles. That slight acquaintance may be your future best friend, that best friend might move away and turn into a casual friend.People important in one part of our lives may later again seem just acquaintances.

One the exercises we had to do was to think of ten names and put them in the right places on the circles, then add another ten and so on. The result can be astounding as with one's first thought they can obviously fit in one place but on further thought seemed to fit better somewhere else.

So when a life changing event like a stroke happens we need to sit down and redefine each person's place in the circles. Our former best friend might not want to see us in pain, suffering, despair, ill health or whatever we are going through now. But *X* a casual friend from work, or golf or church, may step forward and become part of the inner circle, an encourager, a friend in need, a person of such strength and compassion that they become a true friend.

What I have written here is only a rough outline of what she had written. I hope it is enough to whet your appetite and help you to look at the changing relationships in your life with renewed interest. It is okay to redefine who people are to you but remember you might be changing in their view too. A person we value as a true friend might see us as a mere acquaintance or vice versa. Life is not always going to make perfect sense as we all know.

But anyway I hope this has given you food for thought.