Spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.
Have you had that experience of accidentally meeting someone....and then in just a few seconds feeling like you have known them for a long time? Maybe just wanting to have known them forever...? It is that feeling of instant connectedness that creates this urgency to know all about them immediately! Adronitis captures this well. The small talk seems.....unnecessary, unhelpful and just gets in the way, like sticky spider webs that slow down the speed of getting to the "good stuff." It is in these moments that we seem to know immediately, that there will never be enough time to ever get to really know them. The realization is heavy, like treading deep water and fighting to get to ground but it takes forever....
I remember having a burst of Adronitis when I was with a very good friend who I had met just a few months earlier. We had gotten on well and as we started to talk about things I felt this urge to ask:
"What were you like 5 years ago??"
I felt a very strong desire to know them right then and there, not knowing exactly why. The response back was a bit of a defensive: "Why do you want to know?" Fair question.... I stumbled for a reply.... I remember trying to find the right words so I didn't seem so 'dumb'.....What finally came out was not what I expected, and was a revelation to me. "Because I wan't to love you more." This wasn't a romantic "love you" but rather the agape version, the type of just wanting to accept this person for who they were, and by somehow knowing them more deeply would enable me to appreciate them more, to let them know how awesome of a person I thought they were.... as if I could be some kind of a mirror, that they could see the reflection of who they really were.....to see everything I could see, which was amazing to me.
I won't forget that moment.... the response back was very special, emotional and touching. It wouldn't have happened if not for Adronitis. It made me want to cut through the "red tape" of the knowing process. It doesn't have to happen every time.......It isn't for all, and not for every friend...this I know as well. But for those special moments that make all the difference, it is one of the "hurts good" moments my Father taught me so well to cherish.
To my friend.... wherever you are... I still want to know more. I have to wait. I will treasure the small bits and pieces that have come my way... they are like gold, never to tarnish, never losing their luster.
.... a toast to Adronitis, may you continue to play your part in the meeting and knowing of one to another! long live.....
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