Blogging

Relational Intensity…And Chocolate Chip Cookies.

There are few things in life that take away my ability to formulate specific sentiments into words. My friends ofter hear that I’m a “words guy.” Verbal communication is definitely my default mode. Spending hours crafting my words into something that adequately expresses or conveys my emotion is something I enjoy enormously as an outlet for my creative energy. Receiving a handwritten note in the post is one of my absolute favorite things in the entire world, and an intimate hour spent sharing my personal thoughts and reflections with another is one of the sweetest gifts I’ll ever experience.

Having said all of that, I’ve got to admit it…when I lose the capacity to define a situation with either the written or spoken word, I feel incredibly vulnerable. Words are a powerful and infinitely useful tool for showing our innermost desires and understandings to those around us, but they can also be a crutch that allows us to hide.

I returned to Paris on Monday, a mere five days ago. Frankly, the first week back is always my least favorite part of coming back from vacation. Those long four weeks that felt like eternity in the Iowan wilderness suddenly feel as if they were four brief minutes. I find myself laughing at the silly things my little sisters did while sitting on the métro, my heart grows heavy as I think about waiting six months before I share another movie night with American friends. It’d be ridiculous to pretend that my life is anything but an enormous blessing, but learning how to “let go” all over again often takes an enormous amount of effort on my behalf.

Week one was filled with some really special moments…and some really scary moments too. I’ve just transferred into a new university in Paris, so one might guess that getting adjusted to my new environment was one of the frightening moments. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. In fact, as this is the THIRD (and final, I swear!) university transfer I’ve completed thus far, new courses, professors, and classmates feels almost routine.

Rather, it was those special moments that really shook me up. “Wait a second, Adam. That doesn’t make any sense!” I can imagine you protesting. Perhaps you’re absolutely right. Perhaps the special moments shouldn’t be those that scare me, but some of the instances in which I felt entirely fulfilled and excited about the journey that is my life, also sparked something inside of me that greatly resembled fear.

When was the last time you ate a really delicious chocolate chip cookie? On New Year’s Eve at my family’s home in Iowa, some family friends came over to celebrate the holiday with us. Amongst the platters of goodies and snacks that arrived for the party was a huge bowl of chocolate chip cookies that one of my mom’s closest friends named Jean had prepared. As I made the rounds, gathering my munchies for the evening, I politely added one of Jean’s cookies to my plate.

It was mere seconds later, when I bit into that cookie, that fireworks went off in my head. “Oh. My. Goodness!” I exclaimed. “That was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten!” The bittersweet chocolate, combined with the chewy cookie…it’s making my mouth water even now! I must have snuck a good…oh, I don’t know…five, ten…seventeen cookies from that bowl over the course of the night.

My parents made a pretty big financial investment several years ago, purchasing a business in our small community in Iowa. My mom stepped into the daily management role, a position that consumed enormous amounts of time and energy. My dad has long been the resident chef in our house, and when she’d take a bite of a delicious meal at the end of a long day, she would often exclaim, “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“Shannon, it’s chicken noodle soup.” my dad would respond. “What did you eat today?”

“Err…” my mom would respond, as we all laughed.

The stress of running a new business would cause her to forget to eat, so that by the time she finally had dinner, her entire body was rejoicing. Now, I can assure you that my dad can cook a mean bowl of just about anything, but it was not solely the taste of that food that brought forth such a reaction. Rather, it was the taste combined with the nourishment that caused her to be so excited.

This blog came about when I moved to London, after I had already graduated from high school. Though I’m sure I’ve included anecdotes here and there, the majority of the content I’ve shared with those reading my words has been about experiences post-secondary school. While high school was an all-in-all positive experience, there were certain needs and expecations that I recognized small town Iowa was going to have a difficult time meeting. If you’ve ever met me in person, and even if you haven’t, you likely know that I don’t really fit inside any of the social boxes we often try to place people into. I am me…all of the quirks included.

One of the things I so desperately wanted in high school was relationships in which I was able to dig past the “surface” junk that often clutters our lives, and get to the core of another’s heart. I wanted to have the opportunity to know someone in a manner that extended past the everyday hello.

I have been so intensely blessed by the relationships I’ve had the opportunity to develop since beginning my university studies. I could write for hours on end about the discoveries, revelations, and simple moments of elation that have resulted from meeting people from all over the globe who have challenged and encouraged me in incredible ways.

Though each person has left a mark of some kind, there have been a few rare encounters in which my heart felt overwhelmed…moments in which I struggled to remember the simplest of things. My emotions ran the entire spectrum, as if I’d just won some sort of relational lottery. I wanted to cry, I wanted to dance…I wanted to run around like a fool and shout from the rooftops.

Without going into too many details, I’ve had a few of those moments in the last few months. The funny thing is that such things have a tendency to sneak up on you when you least expect it. You may wake up one morning, thinking today feels just like any other…and then, bam. It happens…something changes.

The thing is…people and their energy and resources are not like chocolate chip cookies. Those cookies were free for the taking, sitting in their shiny silver bowl. If I had wanted to eat all fifty of them, nobody would have said a single word…though poor Jean would have thought me most impolite! Relationships however, are not a take, take, take sort of scenario. They are two way streets, with nuances discovered every single day. The speed limit, pavement type, the little twists and turns…heck, the very direction…they’re all elements that have to be defined as life progresses.

Just like my hungry mom after a long day at work, sometimes our hearts really do respond out of a need for nourishment. A simple friendship can feel like the holy grail, because something you had so desperately seeked finally came about. On the other side, there are hungers that are created out of the simple taste of the food.

Have you ever felt like you weren’t hungry in the least bit, only to smell a freshly baked Pizza Hut pizza and determine you’ve never been hungrier in your entire life? Perhaps the image of one tearing into a pizza is a bit scary when it’s applied to the principle of creating relationships with those around us, but it’s a simple word picture that really feels appropriate for myself in this moment. I didn’t realize I was “hungry” in a certain sense, but now that I smelled the freshly baked bread, I’m certain that I could eat a horse.

I suppose that’s where fear can come about. When you eat the entire pizza, and still want another slice…you have to ask yourself, “where am I going with this?” How do we find the balance between a healthy level of intensity and one that borders on obsessive compulsion? A rose bush needs water and fertilizer to grow, but if you leave the garden hose on all night and stack a massive pile of manure over its roots, your rose bush is not going to flourish in the way that it was intended. Instead, you’re going to have a dead bush and a big mess.

As I work on figuring out my own relationships and their development, I hope you too are looking at things from a new perspective. It’s a new year…time to tackle the big issues, right?!

On a lighter note, my pitiful blogging habits over the last few months have to be overhauled. I’ve been reading the blogs of a few friends who have committed to 100 straight days of blogging, and though I’m a bit late, I’m going to throw my name into the hat. I’m certainly not going to write a blog like this every day, and you may only get a simple photo or something from my day…but I’m going to give it a shot. 100 days, here we come. Actually, 99…