Everybody's Changing

Quite the weekend. While I was just expecting a lot of drawn out training events, loss of sleep, and poor eating habits, I find myself in one of "those" weekends. One you'll always remember. One that makes you want to go get hammered drunk, then excuse yourself by blaming everything you're going through. I don't want to talk about it too much, but I'll give you the basic rundown.

A man I trust, respect, and love as much as my father suffered a heartattack and passsed away early Friday morning. This man had mentored me for the two years I spent as a missionary in Taiwan and we were pretty close. The news of his death caught me a little off guard as I received a text message that afternoon, I was just sort of stunned - sort of numb. I still feel a bit removed from the situation even as a memorial service is being held off in another part of the country. His death brought to my mind a quote that I really love by Gen. George S. Patton:

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died,

rather we should thank God that such men lived."

And thats how I feel, even though I'll sure miss him. All I can really do is try and live the things he taught me, in tribute to the great life that he lived.

The other event that made this weekend into what it is was losing one of my bestfriends. No, she didn't die - but I told her I didn't want her to call or text me anymore. Our relationship was one of those that hovered between friend and something more for more than a couple years (or at least in my head it did) We finally decided to give it a shot about a month ago, and I was really excited for our future together. Today, however, that dream finally came to an end. With a build-up of seven or so years my hopes were pretty high even after having had to eat my hopes two or three times. I knew this time that it would have to be different, I couldn't keep chasing the same girl my whole life, and I had decided from that day a month ago that if she had second thoughts, then I would have to walk away no matter how hard it was. So when she told me today that she had to take a step back and keep dating around it killed me to tell her that I didn't want to hear from her again, I had to move on with my life.

Whether or not I like it, life goes on. And no matter how much it hurts, you've got to be fine with it. 5:00 wake up tomorrow for more training. I'll see ya there.