ohhh my, starry-eyed surprise...
Amber: Justin! I love you!
Justin: I lov...
White Goodman: [hits Justin in the face with a Dodgeball] Joanie loves Chachi!
Have I mentioned I can't wait until the semester is over?
See, I get to a certain point where I am so annoyed with classes (and annoyed w/ my poor performance in them) that I just think I'm going to go crazy in them. And I am now at that point. Fortunately, I am almost finished with the psychotic feeling that comes with have a bunch of papers and crap to do, seeing that all I have left are finals and one paper for my Mass Comm class.
Seriously though, only foooouur days! Also, my brother is coming home on Saturday, which I am SUPER stoked about. He is the greatest. And, since I feel inspired to do so (and not at all inspired to study for my art final), I am going to write a lil somethin somethin about how much my bro rocks.
I remember the turning point in our relationship being about the time I was a freshman in high school. We had a normal sibling relationship up till then; he basically didn't want me to be around him and his friends, and ignored me in the halls at school (he was 2 years older than me during school). Although we didn't have some dramatic turnaround, my brother began treating me more like a friend - which inspired me to treat him friendlier as well. By the time he was a senior and was getting ready to go to college, we were taking time to hang out, and we enjoyed having free nights on the weekends to watch movies together and just talk as well.
When Nate left for college, I was sad that we wouldn't be around each other all the time, but I knew he'd be home during the summer, and that he would come home sometimes on weekends. When he was able to come home, we'd always stay up way later than we meant to so we could talk. I began to appreciate his time more, but it still was not at the extent that I do today.
The summer after his freshman year of college, Nathan decided that he wanted to enter the U.S. Air Force. Although many of our family members tried to talk him out of it and thought that an education should be his priority, my brother did not sway from his decision. He believed that he needed to follow the generations of our family that had been in the service, and that it was the best thing he could do to support our country. I had never thought of him as being especially loyal to the US, but his decision showed the firmness of his belief.
December 17, 2002, the night that he left for the Air Force, stands out as one of the definitive moments of my life, because it's one of the few times I can pinpoint when my life took a sudden and painful turn. In a few hours, I realized that I was basically losing someone who was my biggest confidant, someone who knew me better than ANYONE and who knew multitudes of things that I never would have to explain. I was informed a few hours or so before he left that he would probably not be home for a year or a year and a half... I spent most of that evening crying, except when we took some family pictures next to our Christmas tree. I know that I cried most of the drive over to St. Louis, where he was going to stay at the Ramada downtown before going to San Antonio. As my dad, brother and I prayed together in the car, I remember having extreme difficulty getting words out because I was sobbing so hard. Yet, Nathan didn't even act scared. He didn't cry. He was solid, prepared, and ready for anything. And that is how I have witnessed his attitude the past couple years as he's been away from home.
My brother may go through difficult times, but he rarely complains. Like my parents, he is one of the most solidly committed Christians I have ever known, and every conversation we have reflects it. If we get to a point in a conversation where his life and well-being are discussed, he always points out the positive, and if something isn't going well for him, he sees it as something that God will teach him through. He trusts God's will above all things. And though I am forgetful and selfish alot of the time, he has told me on more than one occasion that he constantly prays for me to be drawn into a closer relationship with Jesus.
Today on the phone with him, I started crying just because I miss him, I think, and I just realized how hard it must be for him to be alone. At this point he doesn't have any really good Christian friends to hang out with. He has a church there is San Antonio that he really likes, but he was telling me today that it's a pretty traditional church where they wear suits and ties nearly every Sunday, and he only has one suit. I realize that he has money that he could spend on more clothes if he wanted to, but it made me so upset to think of him, sitting there 2 or 3 Sundays a month in the same suit because it would be a big expense for him to buy another one. I realize I probably blew it out of proportion, but I've tried to ask God lately to soften my heart to things instead of being cynical, so maybe that's a side effect. Either that or I'm just getting too worn out to be rational.
Anyway, I guess the point of this is that I love my brother a whole ton, and I will be really glad to see him. I would say that I will be glad when he moves back home, but I am beginning to doubt that that is going to happen. With the type of job he has, he could end up reenlisting, or getting an intelligence-related job, with the CIA or FBI or something. Whatever happens though, I know God is in control. I am just thankful that he has blessed me with such a great brother, mentor, and friend. I can only trust that I will be given someone in the future who I will appreciate equally as much or more. I guess we will see. :)
Justin: I lov...
White Goodman: [hits Justin in the face with a Dodgeball] Joanie loves Chachi!
Have I mentioned I can't wait until the semester is over?
See, I get to a certain point where I am so annoyed with classes (and annoyed w/ my poor performance in them) that I just think I'm going to go crazy in them. And I am now at that point. Fortunately, I am almost finished with the psychotic feeling that comes with have a bunch of papers and crap to do, seeing that all I have left are finals and one paper for my Mass Comm class.
Seriously though, only foooouur days! Also, my brother is coming home on Saturday, which I am SUPER stoked about. He is the greatest. And, since I feel inspired to do so (and not at all inspired to study for my art final), I am going to write a lil somethin somethin about how much my bro rocks.
I remember the turning point in our relationship being about the time I was a freshman in high school. We had a normal sibling relationship up till then; he basically didn't want me to be around him and his friends, and ignored me in the halls at school (he was 2 years older than me during school). Although we didn't have some dramatic turnaround, my brother began treating me more like a friend - which inspired me to treat him friendlier as well. By the time he was a senior and was getting ready to go to college, we were taking time to hang out, and we enjoyed having free nights on the weekends to watch movies together and just talk as well.
When Nate left for college, I was sad that we wouldn't be around each other all the time, but I knew he'd be home during the summer, and that he would come home sometimes on weekends. When he was able to come home, we'd always stay up way later than we meant to so we could talk. I began to appreciate his time more, but it still was not at the extent that I do today.
The summer after his freshman year of college, Nathan decided that he wanted to enter the U.S. Air Force. Although many of our family members tried to talk him out of it and thought that an education should be his priority, my brother did not sway from his decision. He believed that he needed to follow the generations of our family that had been in the service, and that it was the best thing he could do to support our country. I had never thought of him as being especially loyal to the US, but his decision showed the firmness of his belief.
December 17, 2002, the night that he left for the Air Force, stands out as one of the definitive moments of my life, because it's one of the few times I can pinpoint when my life took a sudden and painful turn. In a few hours, I realized that I was basically losing someone who was my biggest confidant, someone who knew me better than ANYONE and who knew multitudes of things that I never would have to explain. I was informed a few hours or so before he left that he would probably not be home for a year or a year and a half... I spent most of that evening crying, except when we took some family pictures next to our Christmas tree. I know that I cried most of the drive over to St. Louis, where he was going to stay at the Ramada downtown before going to San Antonio. As my dad, brother and I prayed together in the car, I remember having extreme difficulty getting words out because I was sobbing so hard. Yet, Nathan didn't even act scared. He didn't cry. He was solid, prepared, and ready for anything. And that is how I have witnessed his attitude the past couple years as he's been away from home.
My brother may go through difficult times, but he rarely complains. Like my parents, he is one of the most solidly committed Christians I have ever known, and every conversation we have reflects it. If we get to a point in a conversation where his life and well-being are discussed, he always points out the positive, and if something isn't going well for him, he sees it as something that God will teach him through. He trusts God's will above all things. And though I am forgetful and selfish alot of the time, he has told me on more than one occasion that he constantly prays for me to be drawn into a closer relationship with Jesus.
Today on the phone with him, I started crying just because I miss him, I think, and I just realized how hard it must be for him to be alone. At this point he doesn't have any really good Christian friends to hang out with. He has a church there is San Antonio that he really likes, but he was telling me today that it's a pretty traditional church where they wear suits and ties nearly every Sunday, and he only has one suit. I realize that he has money that he could spend on more clothes if he wanted to, but it made me so upset to think of him, sitting there 2 or 3 Sundays a month in the same suit because it would be a big expense for him to buy another one. I realize I probably blew it out of proportion, but I've tried to ask God lately to soften my heart to things instead of being cynical, so maybe that's a side effect. Either that or I'm just getting too worn out to be rational.
Anyway, I guess the point of this is that I love my brother a whole ton, and I will be really glad to see him. I would say that I will be glad when he moves back home, but I am beginning to doubt that that is going to happen. With the type of job he has, he could end up reenlisting, or getting an intelligence-related job, with the CIA or FBI or something. Whatever happens though, I know God is in control. I am just thankful that he has blessed me with such a great brother, mentor, and friend. I can only trust that I will be given someone in the future who I will appreciate equally as much or more. I guess we will see. :)