He takes in life by gulps. It's all happening to him. Not humanity. He hones in on his sphere of influence, and he experiences it. He's a protagonist and his own antagonist. He experiences conflict, emotion, love, and change very personally. But he doesn't dwell on it, seeking to understand every tiny thread. He's a protagonist. He's a hero. He moves quickly, he experiences, and he moves forward again. He's slipping around the corners of his life with an open heart and a mind ready to experience everything on a first-person basis.
He's the hero observers like to write about.
St. Paul, Minnesota: Nationals week. Sam came with us just to be moral support and a hug-buddy for his best friend and me. That was the best. I loved having him there, and I loved experiencing an awesome new part of the country with him. My soul soared.
But as the week went on, conflict started scratching at the edges of our solace. And neither of us were really sure what was going on. One of those fights that's not really a "fight", per se. You don't speak crossly. You don't make ultimatums. Nothing harsh is exchanged. There's no spoken clash. Only a growing cold indifference.
It culminated on the last day. I left TP finals early to seek some time alone. Time away to think, to gulp in silence, to ponder, to understand, to reconcile. I got some ice cream and went to sit alone by the lake at the university. I felt like an emotional rock. Stony. Grey. Indifferent. Resolved, but offering no resolution to our relationship. And that sucked. I wasn't quite sure where to go from there.
And to be quite vulnerable, I was relieved when he texted me. Asking if he could come meet me, saying we had opened the doors of conflict together and should shut them together. He told me how he felt. I listened, analyzed, and thought. I understood, but I contributed nothing. And that was driving him crazy. For an experiencer, watching an observer observe things isn't very telling. It fails to allude to what's going on in the soul. He repeatedly asked me what I had to say about all this. But I didn't really know. For me, understanding is power. The second I understand a situation, that's the moment I have a grasp on it. And I didn't really understand myself enough yet to talk about it.
I didn't understand so I said nothing. My soul wasn't satisfied, so I refused to soften his.
He wept. He prayed over us for several minutes and then cried. It startled me and broke my heart: at least a thousand emotions caught up and churning between my mind and my heart. I've never cried in front of him. I cried over the phone once. But I've never even let that outward display of emotion be his. I've always been scared of how he'd react to it. Scared that it either wouldn't be appreciated or scared that it would be, and that I would feel weak.
I learned a lot about myself just watching him cry.
And then the understanding came in torrents. I saw some fundamental differences that had been causing conflict this whole time. I saw what he didn't understand about me, and I saw what I had never noticed about him. I saw the grace and the forgiveness that we both hadn't grasped. I realized that he was an extraordinary person, and that I was too. And that we were fundamentally different, but that every experiencer needs an observer, and every observer needs an experiencer. I saw him as a protagonist for his own story, not an antagonist of mine. I understood the differences and no longer felt affronted by them.
Deep down, once he understood them, I think Sam no longer felt threatened by our differences either. That's because understanding is power. "Knowledge is power"? Knowledge is worthless if you don't understand it. That moment where we were both so emotionally handicapped - one weeping, one stone cold - became one of the most pivotal in our relationship. Suddenly, we didn't just know a lot about each other. We understood each other. And that opened our hearts.
So this is for you, Sam. Hence the title. Derp. Thank you for pursuing me, for chasing me, and chasing the understanding of me. Thank you for loving me for the person I am, fundamental flaws and differences alike. Thank you for being a hero, and for not changing that about yourself, and having a heart that is so vast and so open to understanding and loving to new depths. An open mind is only as good as an open heart, and your heart's response to knowledge is cherishable. Thank for seeking God, and for seeking God with me. Thank you for seeking truth. And wanting to embody truth. And for all the times you've been truth to me.
"You are an extraordinarily and spectacularly flawed human being, and I love ya." -Sam, 09-02-14.
^Back atcha.
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