The Christmas Quest, Part 1: Have a Conversation With a Stranger in Public
I decided my life was too crazy, but in an attempt to make it less crazy, I inadvertently made it even crazier.
Here’s the story of what happened. There will be multiple parts to this narrative. This is the first one.
I carry a certain restlessness within me, and when paired with my remote work lifestyle and lack of spouse and children, the result is a pretty scattered, unstructured life where I travel and move around a lot. Sounds nice, right?
The problem is that it’s really hard to accomplish anything in life without some sort of rhythm and structure. And I have so many ambitions. All kinds of books I want to write.
So, after a pretty chaotic summer and early fall, I decided to start traveling less. I committed to hunkering down in Texas for months, focusing on developing good writing habits and saving money.
The First Hurdle: ChristmasI didn’t go home to Oregon for Christmas. For a while, Matt and Phoebe considered staying in Texas, too, but ultimately, they decided to make the trek to Oregon after all, leaving me here alone.
Alone. In the suburbs. For over three weeks.
I don’t know my neighbors very well, I have few friends, and and many of them were leaving town for the holidays. This type of isolation is very unhealthy for me. The self-isolation builds on itself, and I start to feel a particular type of depressive misery I’d rather avoid.
And so, in a valiant attempt to avoid misery and self-isolation, I devised a Christmas Quest. I opened to a blank page in my diary and wrote:
50 Things to Do This Christmas(That’s how I wrote it. But really, it was 50 things to do before Matt and Phoebe return circa Jan 7.)
I don’t know if you’ve ever written a bucket list, but 50 is a very large number. I don’t know why I chose 50. But I did. And it was such a struggle to think of 50 things that I started putting some rather whacky things on the list, like…
20. Go to a Christmas party
…when I wasn’t invited to any Christmas parties, and…
22. Go on a date
…when didn’t know anyone to date.
I was just having fun. The list felt very theoretical as I was making it.
45. Go to a ConcertAs I was constructing the list, I found a band on Instagram called TopHouse, and I thought their music was delightful. When I checked their tour schedule, I realized they were coming to Galveston, 45 minutes away, on January 7.
January 7! That was just within the limits of my Christmas Quest. I wrote “go to a concert” on my list.
Unfortunately, I didn’t purchase the ticket immediately, just bookmarked it to purchase later. If you’re thinking that sounds like a dumb idea, you’re right. It was a dumb idea.
Some corners of my personality are very difficult to explain, and here’s one of them: I put off buying things online for as long as possible, even when I know with 100% certainty that I want to buy it. There is no logical reason why I do this.
Anyway, Matt and Phoebe left on December 15, and on December 16 I began the quest in earnest by going to a local holiday market. In the evening, I clicked on the bookmarked link and saw, to my horror, that the TopHouse tickets were all sold out.
Oh dear. Oh dear dear dear.
What could I do? Is there a way to buy tickets on a secondary market? Could I go see a different band? But I didn’t want to see a different band. Every clip of them I saw convinced me that this band would be the Most Fun.
While googling “Can you still get a ticket if the show is sold out,” I came across a random forum where someone advised, “You can always message the band and ask for a ticket. The worst they can say is no.”
So I got on Instagram, and I DM’d the band.
I explained that I was alone for the holidays, that I’d made a list of 50 things to do, and that “go to a concert” was on the list. I explained that I desperately wanted to go to their concert, but it was sold out.
Was there any hope?
Could they get me a ticket somehow?
And as a PS, I added that I didn’t have much to bribe them with, but I’d be happy to gift them each a copy of my book.
Then I sent the message, and it disappeared into the void, with no way for me to tell if anyone had even read it. Ah well. That’s what happens when you message random famous people who don’t follow you.
34. Have a conversation with a stranger in publicThe funny thing is, throughout the course of my quest, I had many conversations with strangers. But the first one happened on Sunday, December 17, and that’s when I crossed it off my list.
I struck up a conversation with Indiana, not because of my quest, but because she was sitting beside me in church when the “greet your neighbor” portion of the service came along. She mentioned that she was from Central America.
“Oh, what country?” I asked.
“Honduras.”
“I’m going to Belize at the end of January,” I said.
“Really?” her eyes lit up. But the sharing time was over. “I’ll talk to you after,” she mouthed.
The Belize StoryAt this point, you may be scratching your head. Wait a minute, you may be thinking. Weren’t you going to settle down and stop traveling so much? Isn’t that why you found yourself alone for the holidays in the first place? What about saving money?
Let me explain.
There’s a Mennonite community in Belize on a colony called “Spanish Lookout,” and the women there asked Mom to come and speak at a lady’s retreat.
Mom was happy to go, but these trips can be exhausting and spiritually intense, and she wanted someone to come along as a support person.
She mentioned it to me several times, and each time I reiterated my plans to boycott travel for a while. The trip sounded like so much fun, but I was sticking to my principles.
But about the third time she brought it up, I asked, “Wait. If I go with you, will it be fun vacation time, or will it be doing the Lord’s work?”
Mom said, “It will be doing the Lord’s work.”
Well, you can’t refuse to do the Lord’s work over something petty like finances, so I agreed to go and assumed the finances would somehow work themselves out.
Anyway, at church the week before Christmas, I told the bones of this story to Indiana as an explanation for why I was taking my first trip to Central America. And she said, “I think the Lord planned for us to meet. I would like to help you with your trip.”
I was floored. Almost speechless. I drove home from church that afternoon, and all I could think was, “miracles always happen to me. Miracles always happen to me.”
Even More MiraclesThe following Tuesday, I opened Instagram, and my heart leaped like I was an eighth-grader whose crush had just walked into the room.
TopHouse had actually replied to my message.
“Allow me to assist!” they said.
And they proceeded to put me on the guest list in exchange for my book.
Yes. That happened. I couldn’t believe it.
That was the moment when I felt like my Christmas Quest was really happening, and I had to complete all 50 items or else I’d forfeit all this wonderful Christmas Karma I’d been given.
Well, that meant I had to go on a date. So for the first time in my life, I downloaded a dating app.
But for that story, well, you’ll just have to come back for Part 2!
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