What it takes to be
Coming home, leaving home, coming home, thinking about it all
Entschuldigung, ich spreche kein Deutsch - a tried and true expression to get you out of talking to solicitors
Did you know I liked honey in my coffee? I’m not sure anybody does. Once upon a time maybe, but that was a long time ago.
I woke up this morning with a spoonful in my cup. It was a nice start to my day. A quiet day, a thoughtful day, a wistful day. I had something I needed to get off my chest but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I turned on Zach Bryan and asked myself “do I want to cry?”
I got back to work.
No tears fell.
Coming back to Hamburg, it felt like an avalanche of friendly faces was waiting for me throughout the city.
I really feel like I’m blessed beyond words. Lately it’s felt like I’m constantly being forced to decide between two great choices. Will I sleep in or get up to boulder? Will I stay out with my friends or have a cozy night in playing games? Will I be home with my family or travel for the holidays? Whatever I decide, all is well. And all is well. Every day. Doesn’t matter if I just got back a good mark on a term paper or spent hours cramped on a bus just to sign a document in Berlin and turn around to make it to class in the morning. Any day I get to wake up is a good day. It’s crazy how much better every aspect of my life has been since taking that mindset.
I was fortunate to catch up with a dear friend of mine this summer, perhaps my oldest. As we were chatting shortly after I returned to TC, we were discussing the different phases we’ve seen each other go through in the decade we’ve known each other. She told me that, for the longest time, I was Cole. Just Cole. I was always Cole. Year to year I might get a new hobby, mature a little bit (or perhaps even regress), change my hair or fashion. But I was always Cole
Then one day, maybe a year before I left for Germany, she said I blossomed. I went from being the same guy she met in 7th grade to being… the same guy… But this time with a LOT more appetite for life! We laughed about the way her mastery of language really pierced through to the heart of it all.
Truly though, it relieved me to hear that. Because I had felt the same thing. I couldn’t tell you exactly why it happened - maybe the right people came in to my life, maybe I grew up a little, maybe my frontal cortex finally developed! Really, the why doesn’t matter. I just know that every breath smells sweeter these days.
I tried to spend some time this summer thinking. It was hard. With five weddings, a week of camping, five cities and forty hours a week down in the dungeon of Midwestern Broadcasting, I never felt like I had the time to just be alone with my thoughts. As I was flying over the Atlantic trying to pass the time, I could hardly believe some of the photos I got this summer. I remember every day and every laugh, but I still can’t believe that I was able to fit so much in. As my friends have asked about my summer, I’ve struggled to figure out which stories I can tell them without hogging the conversation all night. Telling them about Reverend Simon usually gets a laugh, and a fair amount of disbelief. Can you believe that the Germans don’t let you get ordained online?
I’ve been grateful that between catching up with friends and my studies that I’ve been given the space and time to think. This summer was great but it was social bender. I got drunk every day off the simple fact that oh my god I’m back in Michigan and oh my god I can understand what people are saying and oh my god I’m back with my family! It was amazing. But a little time by your lonesome is good for the soul.
I’ve been thinking about who I am. These days it feels easier to answer. So I wonder who I was? Who am I still, to the people who don’t know me anymore? I think to the men and women that I’ve loved, to the hearts that have known mine. I look back to the friends I’ve lost, to the friends cast out or turned from, or those who have simply grown up in a different direction than I have. I think about you, too. What becomes of a boy between taking baths together and asking him to perform your wedding?
Being away, being alone, having a few seconds to reflect have been good for me. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of clarity. Like I’ve finally been able to sort the pile of clothes that’s been building up on my desk because I’ve been too busy to actually fold them and put them where they belong.
I’ve realized my father had me dead to rights 6 years ago when I was going through my first bad breakup and he told me I was a family man. Didn’t exactly comfort me, and I thought he was daft. But I’m not special, I was like any other teenager who thinks their old man is full of it. Yeah of course I love my family, but I’m different! I’m going to jet set and see the world! I’ll never land anywhere long enough for my roots to take hold, always chasing the next adventure! I’m not like the rest of my kin and kith who found their place amongst each other in the sleepy forests and loving embrace of Lake Michigan.
Then I actually went and left for a while, and realized how fucking much I miss all of them. So I guess you were right Dad, you old bastard. And I love you.
Before I left Traverse City, someone asked me what I was looking forward to most when I got back to Germany. My answer was honest: not having to drive. It’s such a measurable boon to my life getting to give up the steering wheel and just get whisked around by public transit. But I went on to explain to them that it’s hard for me to compare my lives between Germany and America - in many ways they’re largely the same. I spend my time in school, studying my silly little social sciences and working on yet another another degree that my Dad doesn’t believe will help me get a job (he may be right). When we aren’t in class, my friends and I get coffee, go to bars, cook dinners together, do sports and laugh. We laugh together a lot. I’m loud and annoying and laugh harder at my jokes than anyone else in the room. I take lots of photos, listen to anything that crosses my sights. Sometimes I like to retreat from the world and read books all day, other times I’m bouncing off the walls and my friends have to take me for walks so they can find some peace.
When I was explaining my first year in Germany to people back home, I often wondered if they were disappointed with my stories. I got the sense that they expected it to be something else, something more alien. The boring truth of it though is that people tend to be like people. We all wake up and try to get through the day. We look for things that make us smile, and try to share those happy moments with the people we care about. Sometimes that’s in a freezing lake with some strangers, other times it’s a mundane study session before finals.
I’ve been reading a great book recently that’s really helped expand on that idea. It’s called Human Kind by Rutger Bregman. If you find yourself losing hope in humanity and feeling like you need something to remind you that there’s a lot of greatness out there, give this one a look.
I worried when I left Michigan for the first time that I’d come home, and it would all be different. I worried life would go on without me. I was worried I’d come back and there’d be no room for Cole any more.
Well, life did go on. But I was able to come home and step right back in to the chaos of it all. Same thing happened in Germany - I left and came back, and life continues.
So let’s keep our chins up and look forward to the next time.
Until then: tchüss, bis spader <3
p.s. - here’s a little playlist with music that felt right as I was writing this.
Great read Cole. Have a great year and soak up every moment. Have a wanderlust adventurous year! ❤️
you are thriving my friend, and I'm so happy for you 🥰