"The Joy and Pain of Close Relationships"

from Tricycle Magazine

You do not learn non-attachment by disengaging and avoiding the intensity of relationships, their joy and their pain. It is easy to disguise as non-attachment what is not non-attachment at all, but your fear of attachment. When you really care about someone and you are willing to commit to that friendship, then you have fertile ground to learn about both attachment and non-attachment. That is what makes a close relationship so rich.

--Judy Lief, "Tying the Knot" (Spring 1998)