Spontaneous

I love being spontaneous. I have had this itch to go and do something completely random and out of the blue for a few weeks now, until Wednesday night when this craving was quenched.

One of my very good friends, maybe even best friend, Kate, attends Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Not being able to see her at least once a week like I am used to has been tough. We could literally laugh for hours and it did not have to be about anything in particular. We spent a lot of our time watching our favorite show, America’s Next Top Model together and talking about deep life journeys usually consisting of parents and guys during the commercial breaks. Now, about all of the interaction we have had has either been over the phone or through Facebook video messages. Kate has been able to visit me here at Iowa State a few times in order to meet all of my friends and see my puny dorm room, but I have never been there to see the place she now calls home and it was beginning to bother me. Good friends should not be separate for such a large amount of time.

I noticed on Facebook yesterday that her status was “getting ready for her last dance performance!” and a pesky little thought popped into my head. I’m going to go watch. One problem…I did not bring my car to college. I called up a good friend of mine, Valerie, who went to school with her and asked if she would maybe want to go watch Kate dance. Before I could even finish my sentence she agreed to go. It just so happens that she knows a lot of really nice people who own cars.

It was finally time to hit the road. We had our directions, IPod and good stories all lined up for the trip. After an hour and a half we reached our destination after driving past it twice not realizing that the campus is practically the size of my pinky nail. We passed a parking lot that housed a max of eighty cars but kept going thinking there would be one closer to the gym. Nope. That was it. We finally parked and sprinted across central campus due to the fact that it was five degrees and blowing like a mini tornado. I felt as if we were running through Narnia’s winter wonderland. When we reached the gym red faced and shivering we remembered that Wartburg has sky walks that connect all of their buildings, but we were glad we just made it there without the wind blowing us into a pile of snow.

We arrived just in time for the half time performance so we quickly mustered up three dollars each and slyly slipped into the student section trying not to give ourselves away. I had butterflies as if I was about to see my favorite band perform or a boy I have not seen for a long time. We giggled because we could not believe we were actually there. I was watching the clock tick down the last few minutes while watching to see if Kate would appear from the “dungeon” as it was cleverly labeled. Five…four…three...a small guy on the Wartburg team attempts to make a half-court shot but it comes two feet short and bounces into the crowd. Half time! The players clear the court and soon music starts playing. As the girls filed out and got into their starting poses, Valerie and I were holding onto each other like proud parents you see at every event with a camcorder and a button of their kid pinned to their chest. We spotted Kate but she had not yet seen us which prolonged our anxiety. She was a dancing pro, better than many of them who had been dancing for years, and then there is Kate who has not has never taken a lesson in her life. The performance was over and they started filing out towards the dungeon so Valerie and I stood up and yelled her name but she did not look, so we yelled it again. Still nothing. Again. And again. Finally she looked to see where this obnoxious noise was coming from and stopped in her tracks and stared for a good five seconds trying to figure out who we were. Then a dropped jaw followed by a huge smile. My favorite reaction to date.

After about five minutes she came out and charged us. We exchanged a few hugs, smiles and happy stories then headed to see her dorm. She could not get over the fact that we were actually there and that we got away with keeping it a surprise and ranted about how excited she was all of the way to her room. There we met her roommate and a few others were heading to Eucharis, Wartburg’s version of The Salt Company at Iowa State. It was dead. There were a lot of people but little life or growth among them. After the service was complete, Kate introduced us to her friends who consisted of mostly guys and you could tell they all wanted her. She is the one of the few friendly and outgoing girls there so they all flock to her. There was one guy in particular who came out of nowhere and introduced himself to us. I could tell he was trying to win us over and pass the best friend test but I could read right through him. He then proceeded to hug Kate, twice, and I wanted to punch him in the gut and tell him to get his hands off of her but I held back. Eventually we left and hung out with a few of her friends in one of their incredibly nice rooms and chatted about all sorts of odds and ends. She has such fun friends. The night came to an early end when Valerie started falling asleep on the couch so we drowsily walked back to Kate’s at one in the morning and got ready to hit the hay. We chatted in our temporary beds and drifted off to sleep.

I woke to the rhythmic buzzing of my phone and the sun seeping through the shades and onto my face. I rolled over fighting the thought of getting out from my toasty sleeping bag and changing out of my comfy pajamas, but I knew we had to depart. I poked Valerie with my index finger a few times to get her to open her eyes and thankfully it worked. We shuffled around her room trying to gather our things without disturbing anyone but unfortunately Kate is a light sleeper. She climbed down her ladder and joined in our effort to pack up. Once everything was folded and stuffed away in a bag we stood facing each other in a silent pause because we knew what followed was the dreaded goodbye. We hugged for a minute and thanked me for coming out to see her, even though it was for such a short amount of time. It meant a lot to her. We sadly waved goodbye and quietly shut the door behind us, hopped back into the car and headed back home to our everyday, routinized lives.