I am friends with a professional actress. You might know her too, her name is Arielle Brosman. She's been a big deal on the stage since about age 5, starring in all sorts of different productions. Lately she's been rehearsing for her role of Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
The play was performed in the round, so all of the audience sat around the stage and the actors were in the circle the whole time, switching boxes and positions between scenes instead of going off stage. So cool. I loved that from my seat I could watch a whole row of our friends reacting to every line.
Of course all of the lines were in Old English which made it difficult for people like Carolyn and me to understand. She leaned over to whisper, "They might as well be speaking in Spanish," a little while in and, "I should have studied more before." We tried to suppress our laughter. Thankfully I had Lesem on my left whispering me a recap of each scene since she had studied this play in college.
It was an awesome performance and we were so proud of our girl Arielle face. Our little camp cheering section was a great crew to spend the night with. We had a fourth meal at Steak n' Shake which felt so HS of us... maybe because of the freshmen double date going on beside us and the loud crew of HS kids that showed up about the same time as our cheeseburgers and Arielle's mandarin oranges. It was a great night.
Because Mel, Arielle, Kata and Jamie were all here from out of town we got to spend the night together and then meet up with Emily, Lesem and Burke for lunch the next day. It felt like a weekend at camp because we were traveling with a group so large. Emily and I convinced them to play Spot It while we waited for our food and these friends got competitive.
I vividly remember sitting on the Longhouse porch with my counselor when I was just a CILT. My session was rather dramatic and I remember telling her through tears, "I just thought I would end up with best friends from CILTs like my sister did. I want camp friends like hers."
My session ended up being ok and a handful of the people were my best friends for years afterwards, but I love that still to this day camp friends are some of my very best friends. It's this awesome mosaic of people that have joined at different times, stayed for different seasons and made connections with different people-- but we're all part of the same big picture. Sometimes we don't hear from someone for awhile but we can always come back together, we show up at the things that matter and we're there when someone needs us.
Late in the afternoon I got to introduce Arielle to two of my favorite college YL leaders. Abby is at Butler and Allison at IU, and I love when I get to see both of them together because the overlap is so rare. Today we got to sit in a coffee booth and talk and it was just perfect.
And honestly it was perfect because it was so imperfect. I found out about a really difficult situation while I was sitting there, had to make a really hard phone call and was just at such a loss of what to do or what to say. My heart was broken for a couple of people that I really love and it seemed like there was absolutely nothing I could do. But these friends sat there and asked questions and listened while I told them what was going on. And then when I couldn't talk or hold it together myself they prayed for those people and the whole situation. They covered the situation in prayer for me, sometimes we just need people to do that and I'm thankful I've got those kinds of people.
Tonight I got to hang out with Allison and Matt for awhile-- I always love to hang out with Al and I'm glad I could get to know Matt more. We ate dinner together, made best friends with the waitress and feasted on pizza. Al and I were trying to convince Matt to stay the night so that they could come to Bob Goff in the morning but he wasn't too keen on the idea. So I asked, "If you could do anything spontaneous right now what would it be?" Allison would want to play a really loud game like they had at their friend's house, Matt wanted to ride inside a grocery cart and I wanted to surprise a YL girl with a cookie cake.
I had already brought along Spot It so we made Al's dream come true and played it really loudly, card-grabbing and wrestling were involved. We drove across the street to Marsh to push Matt in a cart and picked up a cookie cake for my girl. Matt played Taylor Swift in the car and possible sang along louder than I did, major points.
We drove all the way up to Fishers and surprised five of my Young Life girls. I told the mom we were coming ahead of time and she led us downstairs. Three of them were dancing on top of a pool table but jumped off to attack me when they saw me come through the door. Their little sisters were going crazy in the theatre room and a group of their guy friends were being ridiculously funny by themselves in a third room. So much fun and chaos in one house.
I love when people from different parts of my life get to overlap and meet each other. I'm glad that tonight Allison got to meet my girls that I've told her about and that I got to spend time with Matt. Life is just better when we're connected. I really love these kids and I'm so glad I get to be a part of their life.
Allison and Matt headed back to Bloomington really late but I'm thankful they stayed for so long. Things that were reinforced: Allison is one of my favorite people to sit and talk and be vulnerable with, Matt is a proud member of the FBC, life is more fun when you take opportunities and showing up in people's lives is the best.
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