Snyder: How a small, green piece of paper changed my life

I am an English major here at the University of Toledo, and I love whenever authors come to visit Toledo. It gives me an opportunity to learn from someone who has made it, and also get a feel of what I could possibly become in the future. So you can guess when I found out John Green was coming to Columbus for the Get Lost Get Found Tour, I had to find a way to get there.

It was almost as if the idea of making it to Columbus and meeting him was calling my name to make the best summer of my life come true. Of course, I never expected the events of what happened to actually come to fruition, nor did I ever think in some way it wouldn’t feel quite right.

The Get Lost Get Found Tour to promote the upcoming movie adaptation of John Green’s “Paper Towns�? was a free event, so we knew it was going to be crowded when we left from my hometown of Delta, Ohio. It was a partial reason I never expected to get up close and personal with my favorite author. So we decided to leave a day early and rent a room at a hotel in Columbus to be at the doors of the Palace Theater right when they opened up the next morning.

Ironically, on the drive down to Columbus, we got lost frequently, an inside joke that my family and I carried with us as we stood in the very long, long lines at the Get Lost Get Found Tour. We awoke the morning of at about 6:45 a.m. and went to stand outside the doors of the theater at 8 a.m. When we arrived there, I was horrified to see the line had made its way around the building and was within feet of doubling itself. Hours later I would chuckle at the idea that I hadn’t gotten there early enough being one of the first 500 in line, and seeing more than two thousand screaming fans behind me.

We stood for what seemed like days, which really was only six hours as the glaring sun beat down on the pavement we sat on. We wound our way through aluminum fences as we inched closer and closer to the doors of the theater. It was when we reached the east side of the line that we noticed people walking around handing out fan gear, posters, prizes and even pizza (ordered specifically by John himself).

I was leaning on one of the aluminum fences, close to hopping over it and giving up, when a woman walked up to two girls beside me and asked them a trivia question. They answered and she gave them a bright green bracelet to strap around their right wrists. Unbelievably, they were meet-and-greet passes. I really wanted to get one of those bracelets, and I did something that I never have done in my life, and something I doubt anyone thought of doing.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and politely asked for one.

She looked at me as if impressed by my brazened attitude and asked where I had come from, when I had arrived and what school I went to. After telling her I wrote a column for The Independent Collegian, she handed me my own bracelet, and I was allowed to go into the meet-and-greet.

I sat and thought about how many things had to play out perfectly in order for me to have been standing at that exact spot at that exact time. The two girls beside me were actually at the end of a long chain of people that wrapped around the front of the theater from my end in an S-shaped loop approximately 1,000 people behind me. Right as I received my bracelet the line began to move away from the side of the rectangular enclosure and into the middle of the crowd. In j
ust two minutes I would have never received the small paper bracelet that was key to meeting the author that had changed the way I viewed my future in writing.

Inside I was given front-row seats, feet away from the stage, and yards from John Green, Nat Wolff, Cara Delevingne and Halston Sage. The entire show took about one hour, I had to admit I was shocked and disappointed at the fact I had waited six hours in line for a show that lasted close to one hour. I entered the green room after the show ended, pulling out every John Green book I owned, and every one he had written. I had received many entertained looks by the body guards on duty and the other five girls who merely carried one or two. I walked up to the table where he sat and he looked at the stack in my hands with amusement. He personalized each one, signing it with a message for me to read later. He sat and talked to me for a while about writing, how it takes guts to get into the business, how he admired college students who wrote for their college newspapers, what kinds of writing I indulged in and finally he gave me advice.

“The road is long and hard for writers, but doing what you love makes it all worth it. Really it’s about not giving up, and believe me, you’ll want to. You said it was an honor to meet me, but actually it’s an honor for me to come out here and meet people like you who make what I do and love possible.�?

Not only was it just an honor to have this simple piece of advice, something I’ve heard from countless of other people — my mom, my teachers, librarians, friends, family — but finally to hear it from someone who I admired for doing what I loved really solidified it. He also wished me luck in the copy of his very first novel, “Looking for Alaska.�?

This day made me realize that it’s not weeks on end, or even months that can make a year or a summer memorable. It can be something that you’ve always wanted to do, someone you always wanted to meet, or trying something new, but doing it is what makes the event worthy.

College is full of memories and opportunities to create memories like mine — something as a freshman I didn’t take advantage of. Now as a sophomore who learned that one day can change how I see a year, I’m learning to open up and explore the groups and events we have on campus. I want to make my years at college memorable, and the only way to do that is to step out of my comfort zone, and ask, explore, meet people, learn and enjoy the opportunities that are given to me because I’ll never have the chance to experience them again. I only have two minutes to make the decision to say hello to a friendly face, skip a nap and attend a new group meeting, an event or take a class I never thought about taking before.

Faith Snyder is a second-year majoring in English.