The Best Year of My Life

It has really been a while since my last post on here. I have been swamped with school work and different events over the last month or so. Now I have the task of trying my best to remember everything that has happened and in what order but here we go. As you can tell I went to DC for one last road trip with my friends in college. So myself and lee and Nate loaded up in our Chevy Malibu and took off. Lee has a girlfriend who’s family lives up there and they said we could stay with them while we were there. they took us on our own personal night tour of the city and monuments, took us to the zoo which sounds like a field trip but it was pretty awesome, and they took us to wizards basket ball game. not to mention they fed us all we could eat. the real reason that we took the trip at all was so that lee could ask his girlfriends parents for they’re blessing to marry their daughter. The whole weekend we Nate and I have been egging Lee to talk to them but the time never seemed right or he would get nervous and back out. After a long day of exploring the city we met her dad for the Wizards game, Lee mustered up the courage, blocked out all distractions, including Nate and i, and told him about his proposal. we went home and her mom was so excited. she started making up acronyms like “fsin” for first son in law and other things. so the next week the it all went down. they went to these gardens, popped the question and then they me a bunch of us, their closest friends and we had a big dinner together. It’s really wonderful to see two of your closest friends come together and then prepare to tie the figurative knot. 

Someone asked me, “I mean look at you, your girlfriend is in Asia for 3 months and you can’t even talk to her. Is it really worth it, is it really worth waiting?” I was bewildered by this question. The conversation moved on before I was really able to give my answer but of course its worth waiting. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no memory of mistakes. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always Trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never Fails. So of course it’s worth it.

So for the past two months my girlfriend of almost 7 months and my dear friend of almost 4 years has been in Asia traveling without access to a phone or permant address, and limited access to a computer. This obviously means that i have not been able to speak with her for the last two months, but she has been pretty amazing even from thousands of miles away. Since she has been gone we have passed valentines day, my birthday, and our six-month anniversary (cheezy i know). I’m an actor and I was one of the leads in a play while she has been gone. But each of these days, something in the mail has shown up for me, flowers, cards, a box of chocolates, a home video, a book she had made for me with things over the last 4 years. I dont know if she was afraid that i was going to forget about her or she just wanted me to know i am loved but either way both were accomplished. She comes back in 29 days and i am stoked. It’s been a hard 3 months without her around but her homecoming will be amazing. I have been working on having some suprises ready for her when she gets back but i cant tell what they are in case she gets a chance to read all this, but i will keep you informed on how it all comes together. so if you got a significant, tell them you love them and your glad they are in your life, because when they are all of a sudden plucked from it, its too late to tell them.

Today I leave for Kenya. Both of my parents and I are going on a mission trip with a team from the church that my mama preaches at. We will be there for 2 weeks working with village children helping with deworming and helping install water filtration systems. Some of my best friends from my home church is going with us too along with my cuz and some of his friends and a bunch of old fogies there fun though. This is my first time to Africa which is awesome. One day I hope to touch every continent so this is just one more step on my way. Probably won’t be able to post for two weeks or so. But I will update it all when I get back. Prayers would be appreciated, until next time take care.

She made it home. It’s been a long wait but she made it home. After three months of traveling around south eastern Asia as a missionary she made it back to home to me. I could not have been more excited, thats probably why I haven’t had the time to make a post about this yet. 

I was waiting for her at the gate, flowers, sundrop and a Moe’s burrito. The reuniting begins. I had to run down to school to take my last exam in the morning but right back to her house for the next few days. Its kinda incredible how you can be with someone and love the time you have together, but then you cant be with them and you cant hold them and you cant talk to them, and then to be back together just being in the same room is amazing. Its like seeing them for the first time all over again, like you just cant be close enough to them. It was a little weird falling back into place, but a day passed and we were right back where we left off. Laughing and playing games, going to movies and living life together again. I bought us tickets to see one of our favorite bands at Merlefest, the Avett brothers, as a surprise for her first weekend back in the states. I wasn’t going to tell her till we got their but one of our friends didn’t get the message and spilled the beans the night before. It was still great any ways. We spent the whole day listening to great music in the sun, laying in the grass, and dancing along with all the other hippies. It was close to a perfect day. Now we are spending time with our friends and a day here and there on the beach, just soaking up life for all that is worth. 

If there is one thing that I have learned from this time apart its that I can make it without her but don’t want to. Its extraordinary when we are together and every second is precious. It’s an unusual opportunity to get to experience being cut off from someone completely and then getting them back in you life again. It make it obvious how important someone is to you.

I am an actor of sorts. I don’t really make a living off of it as of now but maybe one day I will. However I am going to school right now for acting and today was one of those days where you stop and think, This is what I want to do with my life. I had two acting classes today and I had a scene with a partner due in each. One was from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and the other from A Hatful of Rain. If you have ever seen a play written by Shakespeare you know how the language is almost like the lyrics of a song as the characters words intertwine and dance together off the stage. well to be a part of that and to have the words come out of your like they are your own fills you with excitement that is unmatched. after working on these scenes for weeks they begin to become mundane and a task that has to be done like working out, but the payoff is so great it is worth every minute. the other scene my partner and i had struggled with for weeks, just never really having a good run through but when we got up in front of our collages we were in the groove. we were firing on all cylinders. I don’t know if it was our nerves or the adrenaline or if we just finally hit our mark but to accomplish what we did was like nothing else. 

As my partner and I sat beside each other getting notes from our class we gave each other knuckles and I thought this is what I want to do.

I woke up today to a phone call from my neighbors asking if I wanted to come over for a big breakfast. It was wonderful, bacon, eggs, and blue berry pancakes and great times with some great people. I hadn’t had an opertunity to talk with these friends for some time and it was nice to catch up and talk about life and such. Nothing big but it’s the little things that stand out that we remember.