Andrea Hylen

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July 25, 2009

Concert 22-Pittsburgh, PA. An Epiphany

Hannah slept for the first two hours of the car ride. She spent the night at the DaGrava’s, our family friends. It was good for her to have time with Katie and with Karen, my friend and Katie’s Mom. But, she was tired.

I was all revved up with ideas of how to generate money to continue the journey. As Hannah slept, my mind was thinking and dreaming. I kept reminding myself that I had enough money for the next five days and to focus on that for now. Who to call, what action to take and when…lots and lots of ideas.

When Hannah woke up, I asked if she wanted to hear some of my ideas. First, I talked with her about vlogging, a video blog. When we were in Tulsa, we talked with a videographer for 90 minutes or so and it had been really fun to share some of the stories with him. We had laughed and reminisced and he had stayed with us for a lot longer than he originally thought he would.

As I discussed this with Hannah, she had a different opinion and we ended up arguing. I was so mad, I was ready to turn around and go back to Baltimore. When I look back at it with fresh eyes this morning, I feel the tension that was in the car with us yesterday. Both of us wanted to continue the journey, but we didn’t have the crystal ball that would give us the answers! Sometimes our fears are mirrors for each other.

We worked through it over the next hour and for now, we are going to move forward and each do our own vlog. Stay tuned. I have a funny store about the Honor Society, an Oprah campaign and my passionate conversation with them about this. I will record and post it in the next few days.

We arrived in Pittsburgh with no tickets and no hope of tickets initially. Concert was sold out. We hung out and waited to see if tickets would be released. I watched the BK Apple Fries employees. There is a managing staff that travels with the tour and then they have different people who work for them at each location. The guy who was working the megaphone, at this site, had no enthusiasm, no creativity. I went up to him and demonstrated. “Get your free, ice cold, apple fries. They are delicious and healthy and the Jonas Brothers Love them!” I was demonstrating and practically jumping up and down. He told me that he doesn’t like it when the girls scream and went back to talking into the megaphone like a sleep walker. Hopeless. I walked away shaking my head.

After several hours of checking for tickets at the box office, two tickets were released. We wanted to buy the cheapest seats to stretch our money, but these two seats were the most expensive. I hesitated for about an hour. Nothing else was released. Decided to go for it.

I walked over to the Marriott to use the bathroom. (Why don’t the venues have porta-potty’s outside?!? I think that East Rutherford, NJ was the only venue so far that had toilets outside for the people who were hanging out for hours! Okay, back to the story…)

I looked at the churches surrounding the Mellon Arena. You can’t miss them. They are huge and beautiful with angels and other huge statues on top of them. I saw that one of the churches was called Epiphany Catholic Church. With all of the internal thoughts all stirred up within me, I decided to walk into the church and see if I could have an epiphany myself! Epiphany=A Divine Manifestation.

There was a church service beginning. I sat down in the pew and listened to the sermon, sang Amazing Grace with the congregation, shook a few hands to “Peace be with you,” and then left feeling warm and connected. I felt the surrender in my heart. Whatever was to happen would happen. The priest even mentioned the Jonas Brothers and how they are using their gifts to create joy.

It was time to enter the venue. Hannah was already in the seat location and I thought, “well, this is pretty good. I like these seats.”

She was in a grumpy mood and I was thinking about how spoiled we have become with some of our seats and seeing so many concerts and on and on. I was judging her reaction and wondering what “wisdom” I should share with her to learn from this situation. I decided to dance and sing and talk with her later.

During the Honor Society opening performance, I kept moving to different seats to take pictures. The usher was bringing people down and I had to keep moving back to my seat. Even though we were very close to one of the stages, the camera location was blocking ¾ of the stage. Hannah and I talked during the break and she wanted to go talk to the box office and complain.

It was in this moment that I had an epiphany. I had been settling for the seats we were given and I was telling myself to be grateful for what I had. Hannah was saying, we paid top dollar for these seats and the cameraman is blocking our view! We went to the box office, explained that we had paid for the most expensive seats and that there was nothing that said that there was an obstruction. Within minutes, we were assigned new seats (even though this was a sold out arena) and the usher led us to our seats. Oh, my word! We were in the third row facing the middle of the stage and were so close that I was looking into the eyes of each of the Jonas Brothers.

Hannah and I danced and danced and sang and sang. We had one of the best nights of the whole tour. I changed my perspective about my daughter this evening. Asking for what you want is not being selfish or ungrateful. She was right. If the tickets had been discounted because of the obstruction, we would have had a great time there. But, to pay as much as a front row seat and not be able to see the stage was wrong!

When we arrived at the hotel tonight, which was free because of points I have accumulated, I checked my e-mail. I am receiving an advance in salary from a consulting job I do on the side. There is enough money to keep going for another few weeks and that gives us time to act on some other things that will take a few weeks to complete. Thanks for the prayers and support.

An Epiphany tonight indeed!