Needless to say, Thursday wasn’t a super great day which led to a swamp of a mess with this particular kindred spirit.  Thankfully, crisis ended.  Fairly quickly.  The good thing about observant and equally committed kindred spirits is that they acknowledge that rifts wreck their world as much as they wreck yours and so we set about correcting the situation fairly quickly…but it wasn’t crisis averted.  It was tough. And disruptive.  And weird. And uncomfortable.  And I was edgy and upset.  And the world tilted in an uncomfortable direction for awhile.

This happens about quarterly.  My “go-to” friends know this and actually can see it coming.  “Hey…how are things with that kindred spirit friend of yours?” they’ll ask, checking their watch and noting it’s been almost 4 months since the last time my world got temporarily wrecked.  And we’ve been through enough now that I’m not worried, as I once was, that every wreck spelled “I got dumped by my kindred spirit.” (Those are low days…I’ve been dumped by kindred spirits before…that does cause major life trauma that scars.)  Because of the regularity (almost clockwork) of these happenstances, I try to really think them through and learn from them, lest we not repeat the horror.  And here’s what I realized after this one: This particular kindred spirit relationship cannot withstand the mundane.

I say that with admiration, actually.  One of my life goals has always been to find people who inherently interest me.  And every person I have called a friend has done this to some degree.  But I have other kindred spirits who are really “everyday” kindred spirits; we keep in close contact, we support each other in essential ways, we see eye to eye through the mundane.  But with this one particular kindred spirit who feels so similar to me I often experience a “mirror effect” when together, I know that the everyday, the grind…it’s a killer.  That, precisely, has caused every single wreck we’ve walked through.

I guess I’ve known this for awhile.  But somehow I thought the progression of the relationship over time would change this.  It hasn’t.  We cannot get caught in the mundane.  It only spells trouble.  And this is the price of interesting.  Because interesting is really not about functionality.  And why would I ever want it to be?  If I have a kindred spirit who is willing and able and enjoys engaging conversation about things that no one else will, why would I ever want to clog that up with the boring reality of the everyday?  But I’m always compelled to do it…and it always causes problems.

I’m reading Thomas Merton right now…”No Man is an Island”…and his main point is that, in everything, individuals cannot be all things to all people.  This, I think, is true of kindred spirits as well.  While I have those who are willing to support me on a day-to-day basis, all friends do not fit this category.  But both “kinds” are equally important.  And while I want to be connected on a daily basis to a person that’s so similar to me…I just cannot.  I think it might not meant to be that way.  And as much as I want it to be that way, I have to find a new perspective.  And just hunker down for the next wreck…which by my calculation is scheduled to take place around early December.

But interesting will always win, no matter the price.