Have You Ever?
For a few years, I worked as an outdoor facilitator (think camp counselor but for many different age groups). Along with getting paid to share my love of forests and deserts and mountains, getting to know people quickly was among my favorite aspects of the work. Meeting while wandering has a similar way of opening people up. You’re in a new setting. You’re not sure what you’ll find, but you are looking. Encounters will likely be brief. And the ceiling is made of stars.
Today, as part of my month-long celebration of a year of publishing the Rolling Desk, I want to share one of the get-to-know-each-other games we used to play with new groups. Everyone would get into a circle. Whoever was up first would go to the center of the circle and ask who else had done something. The something could be anything from “used the last piece of toilet paper without putting in a new roll” to “jumped out of an airplane.” If you had shared the experience with the person in the center, you ran to the other side, making sure to find at least one other person to make eye contact with and high-five on the way.
If I’ve learned anything over the year, it’s that those rolling with us here—that you—are full of heart and that I want to get to know you better. So, today here’s my “have-you-ever.”
Have You Ever …
Pretended to Be Someone You’re Not?
My cousin and I went to a mixed-gender church overnight camp when we were in our teens. Neither of us was terribly into the religion part of it (or at least I wasn’t at all). But it was in Provo, Utah, hours away from our hometown. It would last four nights. We’d just gotten our driver’s licenses. She had a car. And it was a getaway our parents could not say no to.
That there was no way I could talk her into ditching the camp was something I was sure of. But even as the pavement spilled like ribbon behind the tires of her burgundy Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, our laughter bouncing against sun-sparkled windows (we always laughed together, still do), I resented what lay ahead. I didn’t want to talk about how we were part of God’s plan. I didn’t want to get high on sugar and salvation. I wanted to be wild and out of control and high on watery beer. And while I’d consoled myself with the possibility of opportunities to flirt, as the miles flew by, I was sobering to the unlikelihood any teenage boys who’d agreed to go to this four-day religious immersion could be enticed into an off-campus make-out session.
So, we concocted a story—something to occupy my bored mind. I would say I was Jo’s “nonmember” friend from a heathen family who went to no church at all. I can’t imagine now why I thought this would be fun. I think partly I just wanted to see if I could pull off pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Maybe, in a way, I was pretending in order to avoid pretending.
I did pull it off, all too well. I couldn’t have imagined the interest my lie would garner—especially from the counselors, who saw it as their mission to convert me by the end of the five days.
One in particular, Samuel, became infatuated with the idea of being the one to lead me to the truth. He invited me to pray with him under the moonlight on a grassy field. The sprinkler system started up while we were still on our knees. He would later invite me to live with his family while I further considered conversion. I would feel like a terribly awful person in the face of his sincerity.
How about you? Have you ever pretended to be someone you weren’t? High-five me (heart the post) if you have. And put your own in the comments, pretty please. Anything goes. Read others’ “have-you-evers.” If you find someone whose experience you can relate to, make eye contact and high-five them (heart their comment). Connecting this way can be surprising and joyful.
I’ll get you started. "Have you ever …
I once signed up for a writing class under my husband’s name and wrote as if I was a mid-30s dude. I’ve never gotten so many compliments on my writing.
Been present with someone you love as they transitioned from this world to the next.