Mr. Third Random Guy

"So you're the third random guy whose phone number I've added to my phone in the past 24 hours."

He protested, "But I'm not random - you know me. Who were the other guys?"

I went on to tell the story of one - the one who was the most random, but I internally disagreed with Mr. Third Random Guy - slightly. He is rather random; I don't know him well - except that I do know that he's a huge fan of Brennan Manning.

I was explaining this to my roommate Shannen on our walk home from Union Square, and she clarified, "Brennan Manning isn't related Peyton Manning - is he?" I laughed and explained that Brennan is a writer and that there is no relation to the professional football player (at least to my knowledge there isn’t.)

So that was last night.

Tonight I found myself smiling for no apparent reason at all. This happens to me from time to time, and when it does, my smiling perpetuates itself and I end up smiling even more because it makes me smile thinking about the very fact that I'm smiling. Except tonight when I was smiling, it was as I was out running and I had to be careful not to make eye contact with anyone (particularly men) as I was running down 5th Avenue because I feared my smiling might send a signal that I wasn't intending to send such as hi, I'm interested.

However, it's not completely accurate to say that I wasn't at all interested. Because I've realized, especially after spending a week in Europe, that I've been falling for a certain, I would like to say someone, but actually it's not that romantic - or perhaps it is, but it’s of a different kind of romance that you can read more about in my post (tba). But yes, it's true - I've unexpectedly fallen for New York. And tonight was yet another run through Central Park with the cool rain refreshing my soul.

I attempted to explain to most random guy the other day a quote by St. Irenaeus, "The Glory of God is man fully alive." I often feel fully alive, but tonight was one of those times in which there was a heightened awareness of the presence of Holy Spirit and a sense of joy and victory that, to be honest, I can’t really explain, but rather it just is – and it is beautiful and breath-taking and it is real.

When I returned back from my run I received a text from most random guy asking if I wanted to meet up for dinner on Wednesday.