We were sitting in a coffee shop. We didn’t have to be at the airport for another several hours. I bought a Matcha green tea latte, and although it was beautiful, I didn’t much care for the taste. I think she also bought a latte, but I can’t really remember.
I pulled out “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” while she pulled out her laptop. I didn’t spend much time reading, and she didn’t spend much time doing whatever it was she was planning to do on her laptop.
I don’t know how the conversation began. We just started talking, about music, maybe, likely. However, somehow the conversation turned, and she was sharing her testimony with me. I was sharing my testimony with her. We cried.
It wasn’t that we had both shared our “I grew up in a Christian home and was saved at the age of 7” testimonies. No, these were the testimonies that hid our deepest sin. These were our stories in the absolute raw, laid bare. Darkness to light and lost to redeemed stories. Before verbalizing mine to her, I had only shared it with maybe four friends. But her bravery was inspiring. She was unashamed. And in that moment, I let down the walls of skepticism that I so often build to protect myself from possible judgment and I let this beautiful human into my heart, to be my friend.
“Vulnerability breeds vulnerability,” she said.
Sabrina Clendenin embodies what it means to be vulnerable, the kind of vulnerable that sets an extra space at the table because no one is perfect and because everyone deserves acceptance and grace and the freedom to live outside the walls of skepticism.
After our moment in the coffee shop, Sabrina and I spent the next two weeks living with one another in England and Scotland. There are not too many people I can successfully spend that much time with and not get tired of. I can’t say I ever got tired of Sabrina though. There was too much laughter, sarcasm, dancing, eating and soul-exposing conversations. Soul-exposing conversation may sound a bit frightening, but I promise it was healing and beautiful.
On one of our free days, we decided to go to the ballet. Sleeping Beauty was being performed at the London Colosseum. We had seen an advertisement for it on a poster in one of the underground elevators.
The ballet was lovely, although we were both confused about why they had two (or was it three?) intermissions.
When we left the building, we took a left and started walking. Sabrina said she knew where we were going, but she had no idea. I didn’t really care. The scenes of the night were invigorating and exciting, and I wanted to be a part of it all. We stopped under the awning of a shopping mall and searched our phones for some available WiFi. There must have been some somewhere because we were soon entering the Underground and boarding a train to get back to our hotel.
Upon making it back to Court’s Square and having decided we were both hungry, we stopped at Franco Manco and ordered a sourdough pizza. Soon we were skipping back to the hotel, giggling to one another as we carried the fresh, hot, cheesy pizza to our room.
We opened the box and began tearing the pizza apart like animals. That sounds a bit dramatic, but they didn’t cut the pizza and we had no knife, so there’s really no other way to put it.
Sabrina laid on the bed and I sat on the floor, and soon I was jamming Hannah Montana and dancing hardcore in my underwear. We laughed until our stomachs and bodies ached.
I’m actually not sure if I’ve had an interaction with Sabrina that didn’t make me laugh.
Like this morning, I walked into Barefoots as she was leaving, and the anxiety in my body was immediately replaced with excitement and hope. I looked at her shining green eyes and was filled with a new energy.
“You look like a mermaid,” she said.
“I wish I was a mermaid, so I could slither into the ocean and swim away,” I replied.
“I have never equated reptiles with mermaids until now.”
Our interactions this semester have not been much more than this interaction. She is heavily involved in Residence Life, is the PRSSA president and is interning with the communications team at Fellowship Bible Church, but she is a light in my life all the same. Somehow being in the same space as me when I need it most.
***
Sabrina,
I have a hard time writing to the public. It makes me self-conscious and overthink. I have to pretend I’m writing for one person, either myself or someone I love.
So I wanted to end this with a letter to you. To tell you thank you for your presence in my life. To tell you thank you for allowing me the freedom to doubt my faith while challenging me to keep my faith at the same time.
I wanted to say thank you for making me laugh, all the time. I wanted to say thank you for your sarcasm but your authenticity. I wanted to say thank you for existing at Union, but not just for existing, but for making a difference. For working to build genuine relationships. For taking the time to have real conversation, even when you have a thousand other things to do and get done. Thank you for sitting with me in Barefoots, which has become as you said this morning, “an extension of your living room.”
Thank you for telling me your story in that coffee shop in Nashville and for pondering life with me in Bokado and Over Under, both situated on the streets of London.
I hope that what you call your “pipe dream” to run social media for a national park or for REI or some other outdoor corporation comes into full fruition. I hope you get to live out of a van and take photos and get paid for it. I hope you find someone who wants to do it with you. Wherever the Lord takes you after you graduate next May, I know you will succeed. I know that you will make a difference. I know that even if I don’t see you for ten years, you will still be my friend. And I will still be able to call you up and ask you to meet me at a coffee shop somewhere.
You are one of the most beautiful of souls. Your bravery, courage and perseverance will forever be an inspiration to me. Your sarcasm, laughter and smile will always bring me joy. You are a light. A flame.
So, thank you.
Your friend,
Addie
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