couches and tea are gateway drugs to human bonding.

This is us.  Anna, Erin, and Megan from left to right. A trio of friendship that was born in Megan’s living room on cozy couches on the Fourth of July, 2015.   Anna has known Megan and I since high school, but it wasn’t until this past year that Megan and I met, became friends, and the three of us discovered how much we really want the world to listen to the sound of our voices blabbering on.  Just look at us down there.  We oooooze confidence and wisdom.

Right?  I know.  You can already tell we’re fantastic.

Okay, I’m going to just level with you, this is Erin writing.  The whole writing in third person in the first paragraph was making me uncomfortable, so I think it best to just get that out there and move on.  I have no idea how to tell you about who we are except by telling you about these two women on my right and on my left.  These are fierce, God-loving women whose hearts and talents give me hope for this world.  It’s my sole reason for wanting Arrowhead Media to exist–so that you, the reader, may hear their witty insights into life, for they’ve been entertaining me since that sunny afternoon on Megan’s couch.

I’ve known Anna since high school, as I mentioned, but it really wasn’t until college that we became friends.  I should actually ask her if she remembers the day I mark as the one where our true friendship began, to see if we agree on the moment.  We met at Caribou Coffee (naturally, on couches) and who knows how, but we started talking about faith, about God, and how much each of us was in love with Jesus Christ.  How do I put this?  Anna and I were friends, for sure, but it was merely surface level until that day.  And we’ve checked in with each other ever since.  Twas a glorious day when we both found ourselves back in our hometown, no jobs to interrupt our time, and just oodles of creativity to unravel.  Anna is my creative superior equal and as such, I constantly rely on her for inspiration.  There’s really never knowing what will come out of her mouth.  Case and point:

The epitome of desperate in online dating: saying goodbye to all geographical constraints on your location.  Are you REALLY going to pursue that Australian?  Yes, yes I just might.

-Anna (lives in Illinois)

Comes out of her mouth all the time.  It’s brilliant.  I feel so privileged.

Here’s an early example of our co-creative efforts.  It was for a post in the Church bulletin advertising for a Young Adult Event.  The best thing about this is that we thought we were hilarious:  

Rough draft Pentecost Bulletin Blurb:

Pentecost plans?

FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION! We’ve got none either. So why don’t we all get together and go to Mickey Finn’s after 5pm Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s parish while adorned in RED. Or mauve, you pick. Mickey Finn’s has generously agreed to trade food and drinks for legal American tenders. In summation: June 8^th after 5pm Mass, join us all you people between the ages of 18 and 39, for the a night of your life. 

[submit for edit]

Ok ok, tell us if you think it’s too much and we’ll revise. Erin doesn’t agree. –Anna

*After further research into what color mauve is, we suggest you wear red. Mauve is not appropriate for the occasion. I repeat, avoid mauve.

I’m sorry, but I still think it’s brilliant.

So at least you get a sense of where things started for Anna and I as far as writing down words in sentence form to create thoughts and ideas, even the nonsensical kind.  This girl’s mind is fantastic, I tell you, and it’s a constant generator of new and wonderful ideas.  I am not, I repeat, not an idea person, therefore I must surround myself with idea people like Anna to keep me going.  Did I mention she sings?  Yeah.  Megan and Anna both sing and it’s amazing.  I only feel inferior 12% of the time but it’s worth it because I have two best friends that create beautiful music I get to listen to simply by handing them a guitar.  I MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT!

Speaking of Megan.

Megan. Anna mentioned Megan probably about a zillion times before I actually met her the night before Anna was moving to a new town an hour and a half away.  The three of us got dinner and just talked casual, life-focused dialogue that included how that very night Megan suspected her sister to be throwing a party at her parent’s house–pay you no mind Mrs. M, I’m sure it wasn’t a real story–and that’s pretty much all I remember of that night.  Wait, no, I remember exchanging numbers and saying ‘hey let’s be real life friends’, but we’d end up waiting on that for another year (until we talked whilst on couches, do you see the trend here?).

So jump ahead, July 4th, 2015 has already happened and I have two things that stand out in my mind where I’d say Megan and I became real life friends.  Thing one: Kevin.  Uggh Kevin, you dog.  Megan had an online date with a guy named Kevin (Yeah, Kevin, I’m using your real name so that if you read this you know it’s you and you can forever live in infamy) and he DIDN’T SHOW UP.  Hence the dog comment.  Anyway, I’m about 45 minutes away from Chicago when I receive a text from Megan.  Here’s the convo:

Megan: Question.  How long do you wait before you assume you’ve been stood up? #ihatedating

Erin: Hilarious. That’s fantastic.  And totally horrible…

Need I go on?  I got there as quickly as I could and we had one heck of a night.  It was awesome.  She came up with a list entitled ‘things you think about while being stood up’ and it was by far the best compilation ever recorded onto a napkin.  I remember thinking: PLEASE MEGAN, BE MY FRIEND!!!

Thing 2: I think it was after church on a Saturday night, and I was hoping a friend of mine would be able to hang out afterwards cause I needed to talk to someone about something probably  suuuper dire and definitely not something overdramatic or unnecessarily angsty but she already had plans (it was the end of the world, literally).  So I instead emailed my friend Doug a very emotional email probably along the lines of ‘Dear friend Doug, woe is me, ect, ect’ where I specifically said, man all I need is someone to show up for me right now.  I sent off the email and about thirty seconds later I got a text from Megan asking me what state I was in.  We got thai food, invented fearless August, and I got to hear all about her heart for the ministry she’s serving at over at Holy Cross.  We became genuine sisters in Christ that night, dear readers, no lie.  And here’s what I sent Doug later that night:

God strikes again. Hes always on time. Megan miller text me as i sent that email to you and wanted to hang out. We just got done with dinner and I feel very very filled. 

Very, very filled.

If I had to boil down what makes Anna and Megan so special to me, it’s that their friendship leaves me just that–very, very filled.   They are God’s tools to help me get through this life, they show insight, love, understanding, mercy, patience, the occasional tough love, and the more I look back the more I realize that our presence in each others’ lives show just how on-time our God is.   And that’s true friendship.  Seeing God in them, feeling filled with the Spirit after having talked with them, feeling encouraged in faith and in life.  These are the things that make life great.  Friends with substance.

Which brings us full circle to Arrowhead.

This collaboration is straight out of the core idea of giving a voice to the 20-something generation of complex, modern ladies who are strong and weak and able and messed up and still trying and growing and falling and getting up and loving and seeking and all of these things that so many people forget because no one’s talking about it.  No one’s talking about it as it relates to God, that is.  There are plenty of people talking about independent women, but not many talking about real world, independent, Godly women.  And it’s time you hear from us.   We’ve got a  lot of points, but as our super cliche tagline says, we only have one direction.  (Jesus…the one direction is Jesus)

So that’s us, that’s Arrowhead,  your friends just trying to add a little substance to this world.

Like The View, but better.

-Arrowhead