Lesson Three:
"Couches and Suitcases - The Thing I Await"
10/26/2013
I recently spent the weekend with my old college roommates at their dorm in the Twin Cities. The four of us sat together around the living room talking life, love, struggles and all the rest when one roommate asked, "What are you most looking forward to about marriage?"
"Something serious and not cliche," were the only guidelines for my response.
So I sat back on the old puke green couch that welcomed me untold times with open arms in the wee hours of the morning during my senior year.
Something serious.
The plush cushions enveloped me like a cloud welcoming a plane into its mystery. No. Maybe that's a bad example. Most people aren't drawn in by the same awe I am inside a cloud. I would say like hugging a giant polar bear, but contrary to popular opinion, polar bears are actually extremely violent when not in Coca Cola commercials. The plane example will have to do.
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I'm quite used to couches. My current job hours away from home requires I sleep on a couch four days of the week. I slept on a futon for three months after graduating college and a pull-out chair the next month after that.
But you can't forget the suitcase. That old beatup suitcase that always sat so perfectly next to the couch on which I slept, containing the four shirts, two jeans, underwear, mismatching socks and one wrinkled pair of nice clothes.
Couches and suitcases. My two dear companions for so many years.
You see, my life has really been about change since I was born.
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I was born in the lovely town of Aledo, Illinois. Roughly twenty days later we moved. I don't remember much about the move, but I've been a roamer ever since.
I spent the next five years in central Minnesota. My parents suggested I put my clothes in the closet, but I knew I may as well keep them in the suitcase. After all, I was a roamer. I even went by Flynn Rider until Disney bought the rights from me when I was four. I truly regret blowing all that money on Legos and Happy Meals.
Just before my sixth birthday, we moved to southeastern Kansas - a little town next to a slaughter house. I had some good times in that town. Played a lot of basketball, passed the swim test at the pool, jumped off the high dive, watched the trains go past, rode bike, and stole the hearts of every 1st grade girl.
But two years later, just as I'd gotten used to the smell of dying pigs, I decided I'd had enough, and I thought I'd try the Iron Range of the true Nort Minnesota. Uncharacteristically, I stayed through all of highschoool. But naturally, after graduating, I made my way to La Mirada, California for college.
However, once again, after hiking the Hollywood hills, visiting the "true" happiest place of earth, cheering on the Angels, getting lost in Bel-Air, taking a picture next to John Wayne's star and crying a thousand tears while packing, I journeyed back to Minnesota.
To this day, people ask why I transfered from one of the best Christian schools in one of the best areas of the country. To this day I don't have an answer. Just call me Wade Swimmer (until Disney buys that off me too).
I spent the next two years in St. Paul, the next three months in North Dakota, the next two months in Georgia, and now my fiance and I are all set to move to Nebraska after our wedding.
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And here I am. Next to the old green couch, suitcase faithfullly to my right, piled with unfolded clothes. Living one day to the next.
Some call this nonsense. Others untrustworthy. Other folly. I call it life, the way I and my wandering heart have always known it.
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So what's the answer to the question? What am I looking forward to? Settling down? Taming my wandering heart? Throwing away the suitcase and sleeping on a bed?
No. Not really.
I don't think wandering hearts ever stop longing for mystery. Stop looking for something new the minute they are comfortable. And if they do, at least not at 23.
No. I'm looking forward to two suitcases. I'm looking forward to not having enough room on the couch and waking up shivering because the beautiful woman beside me stole the covers.
I'm looking forward to only having one stranger next to me on the bus (and eventually the plane when we strike oil and can afford that).
I'm looking forward to having one certainty amidst a sea of mystery. Of having one part of my life I never have to say goodbye to.
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And don't worry. I'm not blind. I know couches will turn to beds and suitcases to closets.
....for now.
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