I came back to Michigan on Thursday night. It’s chilly up here – highs in the mid 20s. But it’s totally worth it. The night I got back, it snowed about 8 inches and it’s snowing as I type this. When I was younger, my brothers and I would play in the snow for hours. We built some of the coolest snow forts you can imagine. If I remember, I will dig up some old pictures of our forts.

Normally, we weren’t allowed to play tackle football, but for some reason all the neighborhood kids’ parents said it was ok for us to play in the winter. So we’d get all our gear on – huge, bulky snow pants, moon boots, hat, gloves, Starter jacket. And we’d go to town – annihilating each other for hours.

As I worked inside today, I heard the sound of kids playing outside. I looked and the backyard neighbor kids were sledding down a hill in their backyard. The 10-year old girl was trying to ride the sled like a surfboard and fell off every single time. It was a real treat to watch them. I wondered back to my youth at who might have watched us and gotten a kick out of it.

Yesterday, I got to snow blow – something I haven’t been able to do in years. When we were growing up, my dad had this incredible Ariens orange beast-of-a-snow-blower that looked like the picture above. It wasn’t a snow blower. It was more correctly called a snow THROWER. It took a 300-pound man named Lars to pull start it. None of this electric start rubbish on today’s snow blowers. The auger on the front could be used to slice many types of deli meat (and decapitate your hand and/or leg — at the same time). One of my favorite features was the snow chute. If you stood in the way of thrown snow, it would knock you over if you weighed less than 50 pounds – a perennial favorite of the 3 little Merrick boys.

However, maintenance on such a machine is intensive. Far more than my mom desires. So she has a little Toro snow blower, but they’re still fun.

Tonight, I went over to my dad’s (I stay at my mom’s when I come home because my pops got re-married). Anyway, we had a good time. We put up their 2nd tree and got a couple surround systems working in his house ahead of the huge Polish party on the 27th.

But the drive home was the best.

I can’t remember a recent time when I was happier. My dad’s place is about 40 minutes from my mom’s. I left my dad’s at about 1am and it was snowing. The roads were covered in snow. And it was just awesome! On my About page, I mention how much I love snow – especially snow on roads. And I got about 45 minutes of driving on it. It reminded me that I’ll always be a Michigan boy. Sometimes the cold is….well, cold. But the snow somehow warms my heart.

One thing I love about snow in Michigan is how normal it is to people. In Nashville, everyone jokes about how many people freak out about it. There was about an inch on the road and everyone who was driving was still doing 55-70. That’s not a macho, I’m-going-to-drive-fast-in-the-snow-so-people-think-I’m-cool thing. It’s just an I-love-Michigan thing.

Most of my drive home was spent singing loudly (and harmonizing poorly) to Christmas music my mom had put on a CD.

The whole thing made my heart feel like a put-together puzzle. I wasn’t worried about anything. I wasn’t angry about anything. I wasn’t sad about anything. I wasn’t looking forward to anything. I was just happy to be driving my mom’s Edge, sharing the road with a few other people, and deeply enjoying the snow. It sounds strange, but it may have been the best night I’ve had in months.

Tonight I was driving back from work when an SUV swerved right in front of me. That’s not atypical, really. And neither was my reaction. “F&@* you, buddy!” This is but one example of reactions I have that are totally incongruous with the situation. Welcome to my life. There’s something absolutely stunning about the anger and rage that lives inside of me. People who know me probably have no idea this person lives inside of me, but it does. You might be wondering right now why I write some of the stuff I write in my blogs. Why make it so available? Do I have some kind of weird voyeuristic tendencies? I don’t. But I’ve decided that speaking the truth about who I am will do two things. It will help me be real with myself about how I need Jesus to change me and it might help other people to be real about their struggles too. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Someone’s going to read this and use it against me or gossip about me? Life is short and I don’t like pretending I’m a great person when I really have some big problems. (Since my mom reads my blogs, I feel obligated to say: I know I’m not all bad, mom! But this stuff isn’t going to fix itself!)

“I think I’m on the brink of something large
Maybe like the breaking of a dawn
Or maybe like a match being lit
Or the sinking of a ship
Letting go gives a better grip”

What if God uses our awareness of our sin – like irrational anger – to drive us to Himself? I feel more like a little kid every day. A million questions. Are we really living the full life? There’s no way! So why do we accept it every day? Arise! This won’t happen by itself. Father, answer. I don’t want to invent some way of living. I want to live how we were intended to live. Who else knows but Him? I’m betting that if we’re willing to really be quiet and listen, He’ll talk to us. A new adventure starts in 6 hours. When did I lose my awe of life? When did I replace it with a psuedo-awe that verbally marvels at things and praises God, but inwardly is numb and unmoved?

That’s all for me tonight. I go to sleep a sleepy, perplexed, and inquiring boy. He remains ever-awake, never-perplexed, and always-knowing. I smile knowing that…and knowing He answers those who ask. And speaks to those who listen.

It’s funny the things you think about when you’re going to the bathroom. Tonight, I thought about two of my traits that people always seem to comment on: my goofiness and my intensity. It’s incredible to me that, somehow, both of these traits exist in me in abundance, as they seem to be opposites. I tell weird stories, say weird sayings, do weird things, make weird noises, sing weird songs. There are a lot of Scrooges out there that don’t like this about me. I get more eye-rolling and sighing than a child exacerbating their parents. But guess what? I’m not going to change. This is just the way I am. And it’s not hurting anybody. Just because it may not appeal to someone’s sensibilities doesn’t mean I’m going to change. It means they need an attitude adjustment.

My second trait that annoys some people is on the opposite end of the spectrum – my intensity. When I get involved with certain activities or projects, I am almost psycho-intense. This, too, seems to frustrate people – how serious I am. I hear sayings like, “Andy, live and let live”, “You worry too much”, “I bet you don’t enjoy life very much”, “Let life happen”, and other drivel (I don’t feel like hiding my disdain for these sayings). Here’s the deal: if someone wants to live an average life like everyone else, that’s cool. But that’s not me. To get free from the mediocrity I perceive in my life, I struggle to find another way to live. Isn’t struggle a necessary part of growth? Yes! This is just the way I am.

It’s been observed that the outcasts of society are those who don’t conform to the average. I miss the mark in both directions (goofiness and intensity), so it shouldn’t surprise me that people want me to fall in line. But I’m not going to. They might think I’m miserable, but I’m not. Besides, there are millions of people in our country living the average life who ARE miserable. That ain’t my style. So no one needs to worry about me! I’m choosing to live my life this way, not passively living every single day of life, like many. And besides, I’ve tried living the average life. It’s nothing special. No, this is just the way I am. My intensity has made me who I am today and will pay rich dividends in the future.