Last night Grace was part of a benefit concert for the South Franklin Center in Provo. I was buying pieces of clothing for group members who couldn't find stuff that matched our dress code (yellow/orange/red with white/tan as accents), and as I checked out the cashier at DI asked me if I had found everything I was looking for.
"I did. I just hope they fit." (Indicating a pair of shoes).
"Well, if they don't, you can bring them back within seven days."
"Yeah. We have a performance tonight, though."
"Oh? For what?"
"I'm in an a cappella group called Grace. We're part of a benefit concert at 7:00 tonight at BYU." (Turn around to show my Grace jacket)
"Wow. You must live an awesome, interesting life. It's really cool that people do that kind of thing."
I wasn't expecting that reply.
I left DI feeling shaken and a bit humbled, but I didn't have a lot of time to reflect. I got to the benefit concert two hours early so that I could set up sound equipment. My donation to the cause: Providing all the sound equipment and doing the live mixing for the concert. It was my first time... but at least every group but Grace was pretty balanced. We didn't have someone to mix us. :/ But people said we sounded good anyway. It was perhaps the most stressful concert I have been to in my life. It was good.
But while I was swimming just now, I found myself thinking about what that cashier said at DI. "You must live an awesome, interesting life." Do I? Is my life really all that different from someone else's? And, if so, how? Why? What does that mean? Is it just that I'm at an interesting part of my life? That she thought it was interesting as a contrast to hers?
My biggest wonder is how that should affect how I live my life... and part of me doesn't want to believe it, but feels obligated to. Because if my life is awesome, and someone else's life isn't, then that brings two meanings: some people don't see the awesomeness in their lives, and it's partly my responsibility to help them find it.
Maybe that's what I was supposed to tell the girl with red hair standing by the bike rack. Maybe she needed to know that life could be interesting and amazing... and just needed to talk with someone.
Or maybe I was just supposed to write about it. I don't know.
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