the real life adventures of bloggers

I second with Martha, this past Saturday will be a night that I will long remember. This night of Uno's, Styx in concert, clothing and music exchange was significant as the night that myself, Cara, and Christina all met our aptly titled "new old friend" Martha, who's blog we've been reading since this summer. It's funny, because I've found myself talking about Martha as if she were any of my other friends. Also, like with any of my friends, I feel for her when she's hurting and try to encourage her, and appreciate the way she encourages me and rejoices with my celebrations. Before meeting her, I felt inspired by knowing such a beautiful person.

And without knowing it, she is helping me transition through graduation and into the post-college world. That sounds really intense, but I love reading about the life of an older peer (oxymoron?) who had a wonderful college experience, has dealt with many hardships, but is now experiencing much joy and living the full life that Christ has for her. I feel like many of my graduated friends have struggled greatly with this transition or aren't living the life that God truly has for them. Some of these same people discouraged me from graduating early, but I knew this was right for me and I know that life after college with be challenging, but it will be good, and maybe God has sent Martha into my life to remind me of that. I hope so.

So, how to summarize such a meeting? I don't know how to capture and describe the things we shared, the questions we asked, the confessions we made, the stories we told, the music we enjoyed, the jokes we laughed at, the old items we swapped. Instead, I'll share our quest for Styx signatures. Cara, who owns a record collection number about 30, brought her Styx record in hopes of getting it signed. After the show, we made our way first to the front of the stage to ask the crew if we could get signatures, who then directed us to side of the stage. At the side of the stage, Cara talked to an employee who informed us that Styx wasn't coming out for autographs tonight. However, he told her that if we wanted to, we could go around the back of the venue, down an alley, find the tour buses and wait outside to see if they come out. He also mentioned that when we get there, we should talk to a fellow named "Butch." Sweet, we had a name, Butch, we were in like flint (as Cara said). After going back to Martha's orange VW Bug to get coats and gloves, we followed the directions and found the tour buses. Cara found Butch, showed him her record, and explained how we were told to come back here. "Ok," Butch replied, pointing further down the alley, "Go that way." We looked at each other. "That way? Is that where the band is going to come out?" "Just go that way," still pointing. "That way, what's down there?" "Go that way." "Are you asking us to leave?" Yes, in a rude and indirect way, Butch was telling us to get our tails outta that alley. We explained that we came from the other direction, and we'd just go back the way we came. Butch started to follow us, we assumed to escort us, but we told him we'd be able to find our way back fine.

We should have known that "Ask for Butch" was not a good sign.

So, while Cara never left with those Styx signatures, we all left Christina's Sunday morning with new memories, a new mix CD, new old clothes, and most importantly, new old friends :)