Relational Dissonance

So I have this like...amazing friend Jake. He's fanfreakintastic. He just started a new blog and his first post caused the following thoughts.

Here's a link to his blog: http://anthropologicaldissonance.blogspot.com/

The post is about many things, not the least of which is about the intent of his blog. But the thing that got my gears going was about the dissonance is found in music. I never understood dissonance musically. I always thought it meant something was wrong, that it was something that needed to be fixed.
Reading Jake explaining dissonance clicked for me that I feel the same way about relationships in my "orbit". Since I was little I felt the overwhelming need for people to just get along. If I noticed dissonance then I would be in a full out panic until it was fixed, or at least until a nervous truce had been worked out.
As Jake (very) well knows I was like that in HS too (hello N and anyone else lol)...I just wanted there to be no dissonance. None at all.
It really wasn't until late last year that I really became comfortable with dissonance. That I began to see the beauty in it, the growth that comes out of it, the intimacy that is developed in relationships because of it.
There are so many factors that caused that, but I think a lot of it came from dissonance that I let just happen. Was it because I didn't have a choice, because I wasn't able to manipulate situations like I used to? Maybe. But I've been out of the manipulation game for a few years now, so that wasn't really different. I think that the dissonance with one person in particular really helped me. I don't know how to tell that person without being all awkward about it..but the dissonance was good, there was beauty in the melody of our conversations even when they were disagreeable and frustrating. I miss that a lot, which is weird because it's not really gone per say...it's just shifting into something else. Which I suppose is natural, but I still miss it.
I still get really panicky when I sense relational dissonance...but, like so many other things in this season of growth, it's getting better.