Fighting gives me a sick stomach and stormy mind. I hate it. It makes a divide between me and a person I would normally feel the closest to, and now there is a chasm. A deep, wide canyon between me and the person I love. I have two options:

I can bitterly give a little and throw a tight rope across and carefully, painfully, dangerously make my way back to said person,

or,

I can build a bridge, give my all, and walk boldly across. That's my options.

Usually in a fight, the real fight is to see who can hold out the longest, stay the maddest, and ultimately be right, so no one wants to give his or her all to making amends--building the bridge. It's easier on one's pride to simply throw a sliver of a rope across, show little action, but what we don't realize is how incredibly dangerous that is to ourselves. By trying to walk that tight rope, we put ourselves in the position to lose everything in that relationship--including ourselves. How horrifying it would be to lose so much over pride, but we do it all of the time. Think of a friend you don't speak to anymore because of a fight, but think beyond the fight and the negativity of it all to the friendship. What did you love about that friendship? Why were you friends? Looking back now, all anger aside, does it even make sense to not be friends or are you just inching your way across a tight rope?

My advice is this:

Life is short, but it can feel long.

Life is joyful, but it can feel dreary.

Life is bountiful, but it can feel thin and tense.

But friendships are a bright spot in this life and it's a shame to make them feel long, dreary, thin, and tense. Hopefully your friendships are long, but also hopefully they are joyful and bountiful. It's a shame to waste such a beautiful thing as friendship over such a silly thing like fighting. So, even if someone's reasoning for fighting is lost to you, don't try to reconcile across a tight rope, build a bridge.