Adventure's Out There

This morning I ate my porridge from a mug because we’ve had a full house all weekend and I wasn’t motivated to stack the dishwasher last night, thus, our eight bowls were dirty. I don’t know how many bowls my mom has in her house but it seems like a lot more than eight. Yet, we never suffer. That’s the thing about conveniences: we always think we need them, but we don’t, they’re just convenient. And convenience hasn’t seemed to be much of a contributor to character development in my experience.

I poured some coffee for the boys and myself, and we all dispersed. Adam is already engrossed in work and Emmett is packing up his things. Today we say farewell to our housemate, for he goes off on an adventure. It’s so interesting to watch our daily companions come and go and see who God has for us in the sway of life. It seems to be a consistent impression I get from people that if you love someone then you must be quite resistant to let them leave but I have lived a life different than that, and I’ve seen there’s beauty in rejoicing in each other’s joys, even if it doesn’t include me all the time. I’ve lived my life hardly seeing the friends I connect with the most, and when I was younger it was very difficult for me to cope with that. I’ve grown to see that closeness doesn’t require proximity or the knowledge of day-to-day activities, or how often they’ve had a cold this season, it’s in the connection of the heart, when you do see each other or speak to each other, you embrace the openness of like souls existing and breathing together. Perhaps much of that perspective comes from being the one who was always leaving constantly and realizing that the tighter someone holds to the sadness of not being able to see you as much as they like, the less joy there actually is in your relationship and the time you spend together. It’s so important, I think, to hope for each other’s hopes and find great joy when adventure comes to them. We all love adventures, and we all know adventures take one away from home, but that doesn’t diminish the warmth and deep richness of what home is.

Thus, I say, “Bon voyage, Emmett!”