So the last time I had talked in this, I spoke about fear of going to school. I talked to you about missing people I cared about alot and furthermore, my fear of the people I would be involved with. I have to say that those fears have become more real than I ever thought.

To start off, my classes are very challenging. Last year I really did sail through school with minimal problems, and now it seems like everything is catching up with me all at once. I feel smothered, often times I feel like its more work than I will ever be able to complete. Besides that I look around me and see people that have no futures, people that do not care about their work, and people who are constantly concerned wtih things other than thier education.

Second of all my house is terrible. Everything is falling apart, the plumbing doesnt work, the air conditioning is non existant, its hot, muggy, and we dont even have screens so opening our windows are not an option. Overall the experience there is not too good, and creates a pretty weak study environment. Needless to say, its not helping that much.

I miss my girlfriend too. I knew it would be hard going away to school and being so far away from her, and of course I was right. She is really special to me and I love herm and honestly goin through the stuff im going through now I don't know what I would do without her. She is having a great time her first year at school and im happy to see that she is enjoying herself. I just miss her. However, there are so many things that remind me of her, it is almost like im with her for a little bit every day. It always makes me happy to know that a thunderstorm, a volkswagon bug, or a koala named charlie, will all remind me of her.

Now that I have listed my complaints, it is time to figure out what I am going to do. I know that at the end of the semester I will be able to leave this place and find out what I would like to do with my life, but until then II need a plan. I need to go to the library more frequently, and get mcuh more work done. I need to take the time to realize when I am being distracted, and seperate myself from those situations. I need to realize that it is time for me to step it up to the next level and do whatever is necessary to do well in school this semester. I just need to get a grip on the situation, and take care of it.

You know my girfriend has always said to me that everything always works out, and shes right. If I give my best effort, it will all work out on the end. Sometimes you just look around and realize that the situation is not the best, but that doesnt not mean you cant make the best of it. I have to take the responsabiliy and move forward and do everything I can to make the most of this semester.

I know its been a while since i have posted last and I apologize. I was getting settled into school for my sophomore year and I have been through a lot of different emotions. But now that i have had time to clear my head I would like to talk, about my girlfriend.

Now I know what all of you are thinking. "Oh my god he is gonna talk about her again, I thought this was supposed to be a blog about life". Well, this is a blog about life, I spend my time talking about things that I find important in my life, and one of the most important aspects of my life is her. So I would like to talk about her for a little bit.

When I was growing up I was overweight. My whole life I was told in a joking manner from my friends that nobody would ever care about me because of my weight. I battled and fought and struggled and then when I was finally at the average weight, I broke out in terrible acne. At that time I thought that nobody would ever care about me, and that my high school, as well as my life, would be particularly lonely.

Then, my sophomore year, I met a girl that would change my life. Although for a few years she would not give me the time of day, my efforts paid off and the day before I first went to college I was able to kiss her.

We spent the next months working and improving on our relationship and soon we were dating. Now it has been over six months since the day she said yes to me asking her out, and I could not be happier. My whole life I had seen those movies about the girl that would change your life, the girl that would change the way you think, and the girl that after you met her, all those love songs you never understood all your life would suddenly make sense. The people who told me all of these things could not have been any more correct.

I can honestly say my girlfriend is one of the best things that has ever happened to me and one of the most important parts of my life. Recently I went to visit her at her school and just being with her, just being in the same state as her made me happy. I could have the worst day of my life, be practically in tears, and just looking into her eyes and seeing her smile makes everything better. When I'm not close to her, hearing her voice on the phone and listening to her laugh and occasionally seeing her smile on a web cam is all i need to make my week. Overall I have to say in complete honesty that I met someone very special to me that is very important in my life. I met a girl I would do anything to make happy. I met a girl that means more to me than anyone I have ever met in my life and truly care about her. I know some of you are seeing this as a pointless post, and its more than obvious that those of you that have have not experienced this feeling yet. More than anything I just want you all to know that I met someone very special, and I love her.

Todays post is a little bit of an extension of yesterdays. I know I spent all of yesterday preaching to you about how good everything is going to be and how I am not nervous about anything, and I feel like for me to just talk about the positives of everything and the optomistic point of view would be not only dishonest to you, but to myself.

I'm scared. I mean I have a great group of friends at school and I know I am going to have a good time, but at the same time these same group of friends are involved with alot of stuff that I try to avoid. In just this past month one of my friends from school has died of an overdose, the other sent to a hospital due to drug related mental instability. I know that this is only the beggining, and that before my time at school is over, I will lost more people that I care about. I know this, I have always known this before anything ever happened to the first two, but yet, they are still my friends. My friends at home do not get involved in the same stuff but I really do not feel as close to them as I do with my friends at school. Often times the people around here are very stuck up and immature and it is usually more than I can handle. My plan is to get away from this school at the end of the semester to try and avoid the ultimate pain I will be suffering from losing more people close to me. It hurts alot. Often times even sitting with my girlfriend who I care about more than any of them, my mind will wonder and take me to places my heart does not want to follow. I think about who will be next. I think about how hard it was to walk into a room of people who did not expect him to die and are completely shocked, when all the while me and others at school were aware of his recreational drug use and did absolutely nothing to prevent it. I think about the time a very close friend struck a girl, and wonder how long it will be before his actions catch up to him. I think about how hard it must be to go to visit your son who, thanks to drug use, has put himself in his own world, and does not even recognize you anymore. He thinks you do not love him, he thinks he is adopted, and he may never be the same again. All these thoughts pass through my mind a few times a day. Many people will look at these situations and say there was nothing they can do, but I will look at those same situations and say that I could have done something to help, prevent, or stop this drug use, and I did not. Often times I sat there and laughed when friends would tell stories about their crazy trips, and now they are gone.
I feel bad for my girlfriend because I constantly am telling her that I am fine because I do not know how she will react to me feeling this way. Her friends are great people, and always have been. I may not get along with all of them, but she really did put herself with a great group of people that I know will do everything in their power to help her whenever something is wrong when I am not around. She is very lucky to have them, and they are very lucky to have her.

This all bring me to what I have been trying to get at. I care about my girlfriend more than I have ever cared about anything or anyone else in my life. When I am with her I try as hard as I can to be the best possible version of myself. Being with her has led me to the appreciation of things I never found interest in before. My eyes have been opened and the course of my life has definately been changed in some way, a positive way, because of her. I pray that I have done something positive in her life as well.
Now, soon, I have to go back to my friends. I go back to being close to all the drugs and violence and pain that I have been trying not to think about while back to home. I must talk to each one of my friends knowing that there is the potential that it will be the last time I speak to them. This is what really scares me. My girlfriend is so excited to go to school and can't wait and talks ot her room mate and is the happiest person on earth, and here I am doing everything I can in my power to slow down time.
I do not want to lose her, and I will do everything I can to make sure we are together for as long as possible. I love her, always have. When I am around her nothing else matters, and for those hours, I probabaly think of how lucky I am in my head about 1000 times, although I may only say it once or twice. Often times when im hugging her or laying with her and she can't see my face I will look up and just mouth the words thank you, because I know there is a higher power at play in the way my life has turned out. I will do anything to make her happy or see her smile, and I thank God for every day I am given with her. Recently I have not been myself around her, and I know it must be making her angry, but I am just overcome with the fear of going away, and that now there is a time limit to how much we can see each other. 12 days, 11, 10, the count down seems to be going faster and faster and I can't do anything to stop it. I just hope and pray that she misses me too, and that our relationship can continued to grow and strengthen, because she is a very special and important part of my life.

Change

Change happens to everyone. It's inevitable. However, change is not what makes a person who they are, it is how that person reacts to the change.

In the next few weeks of my life I will be undergoing a big change that will effect my life significantly. Now I have weighed the pros and cons, but still cant help but to feel that I am losing so much more than I am gaining. It's that time of year again, and after seeing my girlfriend for almost 3 months straight, I must go back to school, where I can only visit her once every few weeks at most. Part of me, actually most of me, asks myself why I decided to choose the school farthest away from home.
But change is not all bad. If relationships, and anything in general, were easy then they would not be so highly sought after. Every relationship has its own set of complications and challenges that the two people involved must overcome together. I know personally that I could not ask for a smarter, more mature, more confident and trustworthy person to go into this with.
I think the important thing to remember here is that the longer you are away from someone the happier you are when you finally get to see them again. It really incredible how much distance can strengthen a relationship at times. As long as you trust the person you are with and truly care about them, like I do, everything will work out

There are moments in our lives that really take our breath away. Often times we do not know when these moments will occur how long they will last, or how many we will have in our lifetime. I would like to think that we get a few in our lives, one would be too little and any more than a handful would desensitize us to such an amazing feeling. Recently, I had my first real moment like this, and I will never forget it.
Its funny the way things work out sometimes. Sometimes the most frustrating of nights can suddenly turn into incredible experiences. A place where you sat and thought in frustration for hours can turn into a sanctuary of tranquility where everything becomes clear and you finally have peace of mind. For me that was my car. I sat in my car 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30 as I watched the minutes pass as slowly as hours from my drivers seat. Although this was not her fault, I was still frustrated because I would not be able to see her for a few days and I really wanted to get the most out of the time I was going to spend with her. I took deep breaths and let the frustration gently pass through my body rather than let it build up in anger, because I knew it was not her fault and there was nothing she could do about it. Knowing it was the fault of a 3rd party, I patiently continued to wait.
Finally, at around 12:30, I was able to see her. She found where I was and pulled up along side of me. She knew I was sad that that our time had been cut so short, but the sadness was overcome with overwhelming joy when I was finally able to see her.
We moved to somewhere more private and began to talk. Because it was so late, and there was nowhere else to go, the back of my car became the venue for our conversation. Now I know what your thinking, and yes the backseat of a car is not the most beautiful of places. But you see, that's what a I mean. These moments they just sneak up on you and it doesn't matter where you are. You could be in a damp dark smelly disgusting room or laying on the beach watching the sunset it doesn't matter when it happens it happens and there is nothing you can do.
So let me get back to my story. We were sitting there, talking, kissing, hugging, and I can honestly say that in the middle of everything I stopped, even if it was just for a second, and looked at her. However this was not a normal look, and I don't think I had ever looked at her this way before. She looked beautiful, as she always does, but there was something special, something different. It was as if for that moment, for that split second when we looked at each other, nothing else mattered. It was almost as if the windows of my car blocked out everything and anything bad in my life. Arguments with my family, college fears, any pain I have ever felt in my life was gone, and I just felt like there was something about this girl that separated her from anyone I had ever known in my life before. Everything was so clear and there was not a shred of doubt in my mind that this is where I should be at this very moment. A second later the feeling was interrupted by the sounds of kids in loud cars, but nevertheless, it was something that made me happier than I have ever felt before.
Now I know, your thinking I am out of my mind, corny, and maybe even a little femanine. If your in the category of those who feel this way, you have not experienced what I have yet. However, if you are in the category of those who know the feeling. I am telling you to really take it to heart and rememeber it for a long time because it is something very important and no matter what happens to you physically or emotionally for the rest of your life, that memory will always be with you.

Faith

I think in order to live any type of happy life at all we have to have some type of faith. When everything material and physical and tangable in your life seems like it is being dragged into a place where you can never get it back, it is that which you cannot see or touch that proves to be most powerful. A see a lot of people wear the crucifix and chain and go to church on Christmas and Easter. These people think that by going to church every once and a while they are doing their God's will. These people are what I like to call, just in case believers. This means the moral compass they use to guide them through life is so messed up they don't even know right from wrong anymore, and they do not really believe in God. But by the off chance he exist, they went to church, just in case.
You can not expect to be born into devout beliefs. For me, it was a few life experiences that showed me that there is some one or some thing out there watching me, watching all of us.
Recently I lost a friend. He was a kid that I knew for a good amount of time, and on top of everything else he was completely healthy. He liked to party and have a good time, but as long as I had known him he had never really strayed from just enough alcohol or maybe a little bit of marijuana to calm him down. A few days ago I woke up to find that he had died of a heart attack in his sleep caused by the combination of the drugs meth and coke, two things he had never touched before in his life. My world came crashing down around me as I fell into a deep state of shock and confusion.
It is situations like these where we stop and think.
Why would he do such a thing?
Why would addicts live such long lives on the drug as he dies after one use?
Where was God?
If I didn't believe that someone or something greater than you or me could ever imagine was behind this, and that this was all part of one plan to better our Earth and everything around it, I do not know what I would do with myself. It is this faith, this feeling of power that overwhelms us at times like these, that push us to move on, learn, and take with us the knowledge and wisdom we have learned from events like these.
We as people are scared of what we can't control and fear the unknown. We are scared that we will lose people close to us to disease and tragedy that we could never possibly predict. We have to put faith in the fact that things out of our control are fully within the control of another more powerful than us. We have to have confidence that in the end, everything in our lives is part of something bigger than we could ever fathom, and that we are all part of this idea, this plan, this everlasting future.
Fear is not always a bad thing to have. Most of the time, fear derives from love. We are afraid to lose something or someone that we care deeply about. To quote Martin Luther King Jr, A man who does not have anything in life he would die for has never truly lived. I am a strong believer of that. I truly pity those who believe that there is nothing bigger than the world we live in. I pray, and believe, that everything has happened for a reason.

I miss my friend.

Risks

Life is about risks. It always has been and most likely always will be. Some of the most recognizable and famous men in history are famous for the risks they took. Unfortunately, some men we will never hear about in our lives took those same risks.
I thinking the hardest thing about risking anything is knowing how much you can potentially lose. We try and weight the options, maybe make a list to see if the rewards out weight the downside, and do all sorts of things to try and put ourselves in the best possible logical position. However, sometimes logic does not mean anything. Sometimes everything we believe is logically correct we know is wrong in our hearts. Poker players will tell you that sometimes they know the odds are against against them but the cards just "feel right". Well, life is the same way. Sometimes the odds are against you but you know what you feel and there is nothing in the world that will stop you from feeling that particular way.
I think the hardest risks we take in our lives are the emotional ones. Putting yourself out there with someone you care about for the first time. Being the first one to try and make a move, or being the first one to say those three words we all do our best not to say at all costs. It can be scary, I know, and a lot of times we say these things knowing that the reward is greatly overshadowed by the chance we are taking, but we say it anyway. Why do we do this? Because we are human. Because for the vast majority of us the heart will always outweigh the mind in decisions like this. Yes we can get hurt a good amount of the time, and some of us get hurt a lot of the time. However, when it all comes down to it, when we finally get that response we have been looking for all this time, it will be more powerful than anything we have ever experienced.