So, yes, I have decided to start a blog. The same guy who begrudgingly has a Twitter account (that I never use, by the way) and rarely updates his Facebook status except for big events (like Christmas or my anniversary), has decided to willingly publish his thoughts on a forum for everyone to read. Not to say that I haven’t had a blog before….anyone remember Xanga…..but that was in college and so long ago that I don’t know for sure if it really counts. Besides, what I was writing about then was probably pretty insignificant and immature anyway, so it’s high time to start anew. I really can’t say what compelled me, other than Katie saying there wasn’t really a reason I shouldn’t have one and it might be a way to make this deployment go by faster.
Ah, yes, that’s why…..the deployment. The one thing I was at least hoping to avoid until September and now find myself willingly on a plane going to a place I’ve already been to and don’t want to go back to. But, that’s neither here nor there at this point. I thought this would be a good way to keep everyone fairly up-to-date on what daily happenings (or close to it as because let’s face it, I’m not always the most consistent of people) at our little deployed location. But, I do hope that it will be something that continues on well past whenever I get back. Thinking about it, in a way the advent of online blogging is just a form of the modern day diary. While it is true that a diary is considered more personal and private, just look at how many memoirs have been published so you might as well just go ahead and get out what you’re thinking because there’s a good possibility that it’ll be made public at some point anyway.
That being said, this blog needs a purpose, both temporary and permanent. For the short term, it will be about this deployment…..or my stay in a minimum security prison as I like to term it sometimes. But, I don’t want to just bore everyone with the mundane day-to-day so I also intend to use this to discuss the books I’m reading, any races that I’m training for and the training itself and conversations/situations that arise that I find interesting and feel deserve further discussion. On a more long term basis, I plan on writing about much of the same (minus the deployment aspect) but will try to incorporate projects and cooking experiments into the mix. Most importantly, though for the long and short term, I want to write about the love and friendship I share with my darling wife, Katie, and my relationship with Christ.
As I write this, there are tears welling up in my eyes and threating to start streaming down for it was slightly more than 12 hours ago that I gave one last hug and planted one last kiss on the best friend I have here on this earth and watched her board a plane. No matter how many we say, the goodbyes never get any easier and I almost always end up breaking down like a little kid. The deployment ones are always the worst because there is nothing better in this world than being next to Katie and experiencing life with her and I have to say farewell to all of that for awhile. I know the duration isn’t as long as others have experienced and I’m not fearful that it will harm our relationship, but it’s so painful all the same. If I haven’t said so already, she’s the absolute best.
I realize that not everyone may be familiar with our story, so this might be a good way to kick off this inaugural post. We met at Cedarville during my senior, her sophomore, year through an AWANA ministry team. This itself is an excellent example of how awesome God’s match making abilities are as I had always wanted to get involved on the team but couldn’t because of classes and Katie had just “happened” to see a post on Cedarville’s ad website about the team and decided to try it out. There wasn’t exactly a romantic connection right away because I was interested in and pursuing another girl at the time, but there was a friendship that slowly began to grow and deepen. It was rare that we didn’t spend a night chatting away on AIM (I did spend time studying though, honestly) and we started to become each other’s confidant. Eventually I did tell Katie about my feelings for this other girl and, despite her own feelings for me, she listened to it all and even gave me advice. So, things didn’t really end up working out with this girl, but me being the stubborn person that I am chose not to give up and move on. This continued on for a portion of the fall and most of the spring semester. During that time, however, my friendship with Katie continued to grow and deepen and we started spending more time together. As the end of the semester came to a close, somehow it got through my stubbornness that it was not meant to be with this girl. However, I had my own feelings for Katie and noticed that I was becoming attracted to her. As we entered finals week, there still wasn’t an actual relationship established, but we were spending as much time as possible with each other. It wasn’t until nearly a week after graduation that we brought up the possibility of starting a relationship and officially started dating. And, here we are today.
Now you might be wondering why I didn’t realize all of this sooner in college and started a relationship there instead of after graduation, making it a long-distance relationship. Frankly, I don’t know why either, other than (1) I was stubborn and (2) maybe God planned it for us to build a strong friendship first before we started dating. I’m so thankful for that time we spent as friends because I think it only served to make us better communicators with each other and allow us to see one another as we truly are before becoming romantically involved.
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