Raisins
"The Eskimos have 52 words for snow because it is so special to them; there ought to be as many for love!" - Margaret Atwood
A year or so ago, Kendal and I were chatting about measuring affection. We were both at the start of relationships and trying to wade through that fawkward (fun + awkward) does he like me as much as I like him period. I think all relationships—professional, friendly and romantic—at all stages can benefit from regular check-ups like this. Let’s face it, time doesn’t equal stability and we all want to lie down at night knowing we’re emotionally getting back as much as we’re giving out.
So I shared with Kendal my weird theory. (This, in retrospect, isn’t such a strange theory considering I’ve been known to find a theoretical comparison between life’s trials and tribulations and a game of Mario Kart. I love a little creative philosophy.) To me, I told her, a balanced relationship seems a lot like baking muffins. We’re all stirring up different amounts of muffin batter determined by our emotional availability. A new relationship is nothing but a recipe contributor who will add more or less 'raisins', determined by how emotionally available and affectionate they are.
A successful relationship like a successful muffin means equal amounts of batter to raisins. Three raisins swimming in a big bowl of batter is a baker’s dilemma—it seems silly to deviate from plain muffins at all if that’s the case; conversely, a Costco variety bag of dried fruit is overload to a one-dozen muffin plan.
The right amount of raisins is an impossible number to determine; it all depends on you and your partner’s tastes and availabilities. Eventually, with the muffin mix still the setting of the story, my theory evolved to a raisin for raisin perspective. If you can bring a similar amount of raisins to my mix as I can bring to yours, balance exists.
The idea is simple, but matching amounts of fictitious dried fruit isn’t. Sometimes I frivolously ask B (I’m crazy, poor B) how many raisins he has for me, and I tell him how many I have for him back. Though I thought the goal was to have the same number, I soon realized that the process of counting was just as valuable. Asking about raisins is my way of pausing the routine of our lives to reflect—how ya doin’? How am I doing? How are we doing? If I’m doing any number comparing at all it’s a check to see that so long as my amount of raisins continues to increase over time, his does too.
Last week at a lunchtime walk and talk with my co-worker pal Kate, we talked about the value of raisins in friendships. I don’t know that I’ve ever asked a platonic friend to count and compare raisins with me, but that’s not to say I’m not mentally checking in on my own. I’m more aware than ever of the import and export of my emotional raisins with my friends. I need to feel balanced in relationships I give energy to as I navigate through my first few years out of college far from my family—in what sometimes seems like the Bowser’s Castle of Mario Kart courses.
So, no thanks Margaret Atwood, I don’t want more words to try to convey the immeasurable. I don’t think more words would make it any more special or any easier to navigate. I like that however strange my theory seems, in practice it’s perfect—there’s no better way to measure the abstract than with the abstract, and no better way to slow down and test the temperature of relationships than by stopping to count raisins.