Deep Thought Fail

 Elannah texted me at work yesterday: "Do you want to make a Costco run just for funsies?"

Absolutely. 

Husband was not interested in taking a long drive into The Big City after an exhausting day of work just to shop at Costco for no particular reason (hello! snagging a carton of Darigold heavy cream is always a reason!), but Joseph wanted to come along, so the three of us hopped into Elannah's car (which has air conditioning; mine doesn't), and I drove us to Costco in the rain (yay! we need rain!). Elannah prefers it when I drive on long trips, and I also prefer to drive on long trips, so that works out pretty well.

While we were there, we found some Kirkland brand baby formula, which my oldest daughter can never get at her Costco, which is in an area of Utah where the babies are exceptionally numerous and hungry. After grabbing two packages of the formula (to her great delight after I called to check with her), we proceeded to add a lot of other items to the cart, not all of which were necessary (the story of a Costco run, amiright?). Well, thirty rolls of toilet paper isn't useless, but a big box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates is a bit unnecessary. But, yum. Ditto the bulgogi-flavored roasted seaweed snacks. And the eggnog (as Joseph assured me, it's never too early in the season for eggnog).

We arrived home a while later, after having waited a very long time for a pepperoni pizza in the Costco cafe, and it wasn't until the dog looked up at me with such a hopeful twinkle in his eye that I remembered we had forgotten to buy dog food. I was done shopping by that point, so Husband did get a chance to make a quick store run after all, bless him, but he only had to go a few blocks.

The Point of the Above Story

If you haven't already noticed, the above is just a little vignette of what happened to me yesterday evening. Nothing stands out about the event except that it was enjoyable because I was with two of my favorite people. There is no moral or lesson there. It's just trivial information. I hadn't really thought it out before I started typing, and the above was the end result. Usually, I would delete it all and start over, though whether I would have made it more meaningful is debatable.

I use this to illustrate what happens to my brain when someone asks me my opinion on deep subjects. No one asks me my opinion on deep subjects anymore, so I'm terribly out of practice with expressing myself when my thoughts on a subject have, until the point of vocal expression, lived in my brain solely as nebulous fragments strung together by visual images that make sense only to me. To cement them into defining words is frustrating and fraught with danger. 

I mentioned in my last post that one of the junior boys visits me daily at the seminary. I've known him since he was a freshman, and he started coming to me for long chats last year. He is a deep thinker, and he is chock full of insightful questions about the gospel, the scriptures, and life in general; and while our conversations are very interesting, they leave me mentally drained because I have to both recall every scripture, book, and talk by prophets and apostles I've ever read and then cement my formerly nebulous thoughts into concrete words. What makes it worse is that he genuinely listens to me and values my insights, which is rare for even the most non-self-absorbed of teenagers. It puts the pressure on.

His habit is to come in right before his seminary class, sneak quietly into my office, and then suddenly say my name so that I yelp in surprise (I never hear him coming. I've begged him to at least cough or something). Then he tosses his backpack on the floor and folds his lanky six-foot frame into one of my office chairs. I say, "Well, hello! How is your day going, and what have you been thinking about?" and he ponders for a minute and then blurts out something both fascinating and tricky, frequently something that I also pondered at length when I was a kid his age. Seeing the danger of getting too involved in a long conversation, I then say, "You've got two minutes, and then I'm kicking you out so you can go to your class," to which he makes a face of disagreement, but starts talking. After two minutes, I say, "Okay, now go to class and come say hi before you leave," but I also have to stand up and pretty much push him out of my office and into his class while he protests, "But I learn so much more when we talk than in class!" to which I say, "But you need to study the scriptures your teacher is talking about today. It's important! The Spirit will teach you something if you go with an open heart," and he finally, reluctantly, goes to class, which is a bit noisy and chaotic for his tastes. He's a classic introvert. 

After school, he shows up again, and this time I have twenty minutes to dedicate to a conversation before it's time to kick all the students out of the building, lock up, and go home to take Gary to work. I've fortified that boundary because, otherwise, he would stay for hours. Even if I know Joseph will take Gary to work, I still claim the need to leave to take Gary to work. I really enjoy our discussions, and I enjoy seeing him gain confidence in his ability to hear the Spirit and the fact the God loves him, but, obviously, there are professional boundaries that need to be maintained. The fact that I won't have much time at work for three months will help maintain that boundary. Today I suggested two other students he should seek out who also like to come talk to me about their thoughts.

The Point of the Above Story(?)

I'm just going to state the obvious: I thought I had a point to make, but it took a left turn somewhere and became just another vignette. At this juncture, I either roll my eyes and delete it all or just go with it. 

I'm just going with it. 

Actually, I think I did make my point that I have a very difficult time cementing my deeper thoughts into words. You'll notice I expressed no clearly delineated deep thoughts, though I'm pretty sure I thought I had some. You, gentle reader, will have to infer what it was I was trying to say (and then let me know).