Kindness to strangers

Old Campbell County Day came and went. Our face painting booth was more of a sucess than the parade but if anything I learned a lot and I have to be content with that. Most importantly, we had a lot of laughs, which is something we do a lot when we are all together. Much kudos to my Mom for taking pictures that I will look back fondly on one day. That is an ever constant gift she has for me, photographs of my life. I need to remember to include her in more of them because they will be the only ones I want to look at one day when she is gone.

Yesterday, Amanda asked me to accompany her to pick up a costume she found on Craigslist. Alice in Wonderland. She will make a perfect Alice with her long blonde hair. Anyway, Anthony and I accompanied her to protect her from potential serial killers and rapist posing as innocent people that want to sell costumes on Craigslists.

Any way, it wasn't a serial killer but a perfectly normal girl. She awkwardly stood in her stairwell as Amanda pulled out the costume, giving it a look-see and handing over the twelve dollars, all while the awkward girl asked us questions: "Where are you from?" "How old are you all?" She was from Kansas she informed us. She looked at us with sad eyes as Amanda said thanks and we turned to leave. This was a Craigslist transaction after all.

As we were leaving, I turned to Amanda and said, "Looks like somebody wants to make friends"

Immediatly, it dawned on Amanda what I meant and she immediatly felt bad, "Maybe we should invite her to dinner?"

We all shrugged. "I'll shoot her an email tomorrow" Amanda said with a sense of finality.

We went to dinner, occasionally referancing the awkward stanger, acknowledging how scary it would be to move to a new town and have no friends and how we take each other for granted.

We decided to do what we always do, persuse Target for sales. As we were walking in, Amanda gets a text from the awkward stranger, "What do you guys do for fun in this town?"

I told Amanda to call her and invite her to meet us at Starbucks.

Long story short, the awkward stangers name is Carrie and she moved here 3 years ago, following a mysterious internet job that she wouldn't elaborate on but that fell through. She was painfully shy but warmed up over the conversation. At least Anthony is good at keeping things moving in conversations.

We couldn't help but ponder what it all meant...meeting Carrie and feeling compelled to invite her into our lives. Comtemplating what events we could possibly invite her to, pondering how she would interact with our other friends. I guess its empathy, putting ourselves in her shoes, even though I'm fairly certain after 3 years I would have made some progress. But then again, I'm not painfully shy.

Maybe we'll see her again, maybe we won't. I'm glad to know that I still have the capacity to reach out to people, that I still feel compelled to make new friends, even if I am slightly guarded.