Releasing the Notes

I know I have already done an autumn appreciation post with Autumnal, but I can’t help but do another. And, to be honest, there will probably be another. There are a lot of things I like about the season, it has that crisp air, the apple cider is peak, the leaves are changing color, and it is harvest time.

And I had to use Fall Out Boy as the musicians this week because I get to double-dip on my word play with the title and this song:

Grand Theft Autumn. Because autumn. Get it?

The magic of it all is that the song fits with my thoughts of late. I have been crazy busy the last week or so as we get our house ready to sell. We are moving soon to a place where we will have more land and I can get chickens and ducks and live out some of my homesteading dreams. I have been excited about that prospect, and it has been fun designing our house and mapping out what we will do on our new lot and everything in the dreaming stage of the process.

But now I am getting to the bitter part as well. A few nights ago I was hanging out with a group of good friends and couldn’t help but think that it may be the last time we are all together like this.

And I’m not the only one; my wife was working in the basement and came across some “wall-art” the girl next door had drawn, along with her signature (which was impressive given that she was maybe 5 or 6 at the time it was drawn), and she had to sit down and cry for a minute.

People in this small town where we live have really made an impact on our life. When we first moved in, we were nervous because we had some really close friends from where we lived before. We wanted to bring some of them with us, and would send them house listings in our neighborhood to try and entice them. Now, as we look at our imminent departure, there are similar feelings. We have tried to convince friends to move down with us, light-heartedly, but still genuine.

I don’t think there is anything particularly magical about the town itself. We moved here for the small-town feel. That feeling has left as more and more housing is built, and I can’t get too upset because I am sure someone felt the same way when we built our house here. The new houses have brought good friends with them as well. The feeling we loved when we moved in has slowly left me. The small town charm has been paved over.

So I want to tell the people who have really made a difference in my life that they are, indeed, “the last good thing about this part of town.”

In all honesty, that is a bit much. I wouldn’t say the town has gone to crap or anything, it is still a beautiful spot. I still love the views from our yard, the mountains in every direction still capture my eye at sunset.

But you are what we have loved most about this part of town.

So there are many days I wish we were staying, or that you were coming with us, but I know that isn’t what will happen.

I will have to live with the lessons I have learned here.

I have learned that being open about my mental illnesses is powerful. That putting up a false face and pretending I am okay when I am not is harmful not only to myself, but to everyone around me. When I am open, I create space for others to be open as well.

I have learned that people are much deeper than what we first see. When we reject someone because of one aspect of their life, we miss out on everything else they have to offer.

That one has a name, actually. It is called “thin-slicing”, and I want to elaborate on it for a second.

I was once out talking to a man in his apricot trees. The friend I was with had picked one and taken a bite (the owner had invited us to). When he looked back down at the fruit, his face went green and he threw the apricot. He then looked to see that the owner wasn’t looking as he spat out the fruit and started wiping his tongue on his sleeve.

When he had looked down, he had seen the last thing you want to see when you bite into fruit – half of a wriggling worm. The other half had been in his mouth, which is why he was spitting and wiping his tongue.

If I had taken a thin slice of that fruit, and that worm had shown up, I would throw out the whole thing, just like my friend had. This, however, ignores the fact that the majority of that fruit hadn’t been touched by the worm. If he had bitten from any other angle, he would have enjoyed the bite.

This is where the analogy gets strenuous. I would totally throw out a whole fruit for a worm. When you move the analogy to people, though, it is a different story. There are people who have aspects that I don’t agree with, or that I don’t understand. Some of my closest friends like football, but if I judged them based entirely off of that, I would miss out on everything else they are. I wouldn’t have gotten into reading Brandon Sanderson without them, or found good bluegrass music, or felt comfortable enough to embrace my nerdiness with Dungeons and Dragons.

When I type people based entirely off of one interaction, I miss out more than anyone else ever would.

But back to the lessons-

I’ve learned that it is not hard to lift other’s burdens. Often, a person struggling doesn’t need you to take the whole burden from them, they just need someone to lift for a second while they figure things out. I had a major ankle sprain while my wife was majorly pregnant, and neither of us could mow the lawn. Our neighbor saw her trying one day, and he mowed it for us for the rest of the summer. It wasn’t something that we wanted him to do for us forever, but doing it while we were adjusting to everything going on meant the world to us.

I’ve learned that love can fix a lot of things. We have occasionally had our kids make a rough friend, but through my wife’s never ending compassion we have seen them soften. I am sure I have been that rough kid in many lives.

And I’ve learned that it is really the quality of the people that make a place home.