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Alliray Love Story – Chapter 4

Considering Valentines Day will be here rather shortly, I think it’s time for another installment of the Alliray love story.

During the fall of 2007 Ray and I were together all the time. I specifically remember one day Ray asking me to come hang out at his apartment and watch a movie. We watched Superbad (btw – not as funny as people say it is) and I worked on a 2-d art project involving monochromatic maple leaves. Haha!
On December 17th of 2007 I had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Basically, I was walking down the stairs at work, stepped wrong, and ended up breaking my foot. So dumb, right? Ray was really sweet to me, even when I was hopping around his apartment with my foot in a cast. He even wheeled me around in a wheelchair so I could Christmas shop at Webb’s Antique Mall.
A few weeks later, on New Years Eve, Ray opted out of a meat-and-booze-type-party to hang out with me at a low key pretzels and-dominoes-type-party. We watched the ball drop and then left for his apartment because we wanted to spend more time together. We watched Punch Drunk Love and talked until 4am. At that point, I pretty much knew he had a crush on me. =)

Catch up with chapters 1, 2 and 3.

Alliray Love Story – Chapter 3

Alliray Love Story – Chapter 2

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Over the next several years I went to many many more Unforsaken shows. They seemed to be playing every weekend and I was absolutely ok with it. My friends and I saw them at churches, events, parties, youth rallies, etc. Unforsaken was definitely the coolest local band we had. I even got one of their cd’s (that my mom bought for me at a local Christianbook store… hahah) in my stocking one Christmas.

Ray was the bass player. He had long hair, wore shiny shirts and yellow tinted sunglasses. He always seemed nice but he was WAY older than me. Like SOOO old. 5 whole years… which seems like a lot when you’re in high school. Haha.

Around the time I was 18 Unforsaken started going on long tours. Like 7 and 8 months long. They changed their name from Unforsaken to Rino, which I personally thought was a great move. It also looked better on tshirts.

At this point I was in college and had started going to a thursday night bible study at our BCM director’s house. I had become disillusioned with church and the actions and attitudes I had seen demonstrated by Christians. That bible study and the people involved were exactly what I needed at the time. I need to step back from the contemporary Christian subculture and get back to the basics. The gospel, love, sacrifice… you know, things that are a little more important than ultimate frisbee and pizza parties. Haha.

About 6 months later, that very same BCM director started a church that seemed to be full of single semi-misfits. And after a few weeks, guess who walked in the doors? The boys from Unforsaken!

Alliray love story: chapter 1

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In 8th grade I was awesome. I had a light blue fleece tech vest and I wore ribbons in my hair. I played the flute in band and I tried to trick my parents into letting me stay up until 10:00 pm so I could watch Dawson’s Creek. I made pretty good grades but I would cuss sometimes so I could keep my street cred. Ok, I never had street cred, but my friends and I did affectionately call my neighborhood the mid-to-upper-class-white-suburban-ghetto. All in all, I was your typical lame teenager.

My best friend MeLissa (yes, with a capital “L”) and I heard rumors about this place called The Dream Center. It was like a club for christian kids in little ole’ Lake City. Clearly we had to be part of that. We dressed in our coolest outfits and I wore grey eye shadow because my magazines told me that color was for night. My mom dropped us off in her early 90’s blue minivan.

The Dream Center was a magical place. We walked into a teenage heaven equipped with black lights, splatter paint walls, virgin daiquiris, and a tiny stage in the corner. A band from the next town over called Unforsaken was playing. All I can remember about them was that I thought they were weird and the lead singer (who is my current small group leader?) was wearing a hot green jumpsuit. MeLissa and I secretly called him Luigi. I didn’t even notice the dreamboat bass player because I was too preoccupied playing foosball with a 7th grader.