This week has been an odd one.  I am finally at the point were Kyle being gone only got to me a couple of times.  I have been in a great mood the last couple of days even with dealing with roommate issues.  Thats another thing.  A bit of advice to those people thinking their roommate will be their best friend....its not true and things do change from the beginning of the year to second semester.  I have also been reminded of God's love for us.  I have seen him all week in little acts people have been doing for me, in the beautiful weather we have had, but most of all in my sisters and the real friends I have made here.  I came into this semester determined to be a part of a group that I have found out doesn't want or need me and I am ok with that.  I got to spend my day yesterday really focused on my studies and then joking around with some of the most wonderful and hilarious girls there are.  I'm glad God has put these woman in my life because if I would have gone with the group mention before I would be a jealous, uptight, and sneaking person I found myself becoming last semester and I hated myself for it.  I also got to talk to my best friend from home.  We haven't talked for a month but no matter how long it may be we always go on for hours and laugh until we are both crying.  That is true friendship.  Someone who tells you what they think but then supports you no matter what your decision.  She is always willing to listen to me no matter what is going on in her life and I will always do the same for her.  I miss her like crazy but I know she will be the maid of honor next to me on my wedding day and the one who's kids I will always tell mine they need to marry so we can actually be family.  Not only did that put me in a good mood and make my week that much better but today is my grandpa's 81st birthday.  A month and a half ago we didn't know if we would be celebrating this day with him here.  He was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and at age 80 they normally don't give chemo.  My grandpa told the doctor's he would fight and fight he has.  We may not know how long he has left and he is very weak but he is here and living life to the fullest!  He is my mentor, my strength and most of all my best friend.  His approval and pride in me is something I will never want from anyone else as much as I do from him.  One of my best friends lost that person today.  Her grandmother passed and she was so close to her.  My heart and prayers go out to her family.  I can't imagine what they are going through.  Things like this make you grateful for what you have and I am so grateful for my grandpa and all he has done for me.  The last few weeks have been a lot of reflecting but it has been good and I am oh so excited for the future!
On a more positive happy note Kyle's flight won the polar bear 5k which is so exciting and those points go into their total score to be the best flight there!! I know Kyle is pushing himself so hard to do his best and I can't explain how proud I am of him!  Tomorrow is letter day! Yay!

It's Friday and still no letter.  I think I have checked the mailbox at least a dozen times. Got mad at the mail for not being fast enough, mad at Kyle for not writing and mad at the front desk lady for not putting the mail out faster.  Although this anger passed through my head I realized after talking to Kyle's family about the letter they received I am not being rational.  Yes I have time to write Kyle everyday but that is because I stay up till one to do so.  I don't have to get up at six and not rest until I go to bed.  I get to take a nap, watch movies and just hang out with my friends.  Kyle doesn't get to do that.  He has a small amount of time and I would so much rather him use that to write someone else, use it to catch up on his sleep or just hang out with the guys.  I hopefully have a long time with Kyle and I have had so many moments with him so many others haven't and I need to be grateful for that.
I went through my first really rough day without Kyle.  My mom's best friend's husband died a year ago yesterday.  I knew him through out my childhood and although our parents were not super close after we moved my mom was still very close with Lisa.  In fact my mom was the first phone call Lisa made when Ed was diagnosed with oral cancer. A cancer that has a very low survival rate.  He fought so hard as did Lisa and I had the privilege to visit with him six months before his passing.  I will always remember the day my mom got the phone call.  I walked in the family room to find her on the couch.  The minute she saw me she broke down and I knew.  She said Lisa had called her at work three times.  A mess each one.  My mom and ran our half marathon four months earlier in his honor and sent him our medals.  13.1 is officially his number now to his family and mine.  He is one of my inspirations.  His wife is my hero.  She is one of the most loving, caring, optimistic and strong people I know.  She has four boys ranging in age from a seventh grader to the oldest who just graduated college a semester early.  She misses Ed dearly and I cried several times yesterday thinking about how she was handling the day.  They were high school sweet hearts and after twenty plus years of marriage they were still madly in love.  A love everyone should experience.
Not only was yesterday a rough day for me it was a day of reflection for this coming semester.  I had previously decided I was going to go out, let loose a bit but still focus on school and health.  After my interview with Workcamps and several people on my floor getting MIP's I debated my previous statement.  Did I really want to go out like that.  I would so much rather stay in with a few people and watch movies and stuff our faces with pizza.  Drinking has never been a big deal to me.  Here it seems to be one of the major ways people meet which has sucked for me.
There has been a lot of reflection and changes on my part and I think the hardest part is not being able to talk about it with my best friend.  Kyle and I clicked right off the back with how much we communicated about everything.  Things going on that day, our goals, the future, and things we loved.  I can't wait till I can talk to him about anything! That day is getting closer and closer!

Tuesday....four classes, three of which are an hour and fifteen minutes, and then a lab that is an hour and fifty-five minutes.
Tuesday.....the day after Monday so basically the first day of the week sense Monday is just Monday.
Tuesday.....the fourth day my parents have been in sunny Florida, without me.
Tuesday.....the day before the interview that could change my summer...actually my life.
Tuesday.....the day Kyle had his first day of basic, and the first day not talking to him....at all.
Tuesday.....my busiest day but my most rewarding.
Tuesday.....when the world seems the craziest but I find the beauty in the little things.
I have always been someone who has become overwhelmed when I have a lot of things going on at once but I seem to produce my best work when I am being pulled in a thousand directions at once.  I love knowing I got through my day where I only had an hour of rest.  Although it stresses me way out to prepare and plan for these days I know I will be able to make it through.  It also helps having Kyle's motivation.  Although I would rather have him telling me himself to keep going and get good grades or he will fight me (actually won't fight me promise), I constantly have found myself the last week and a half thinking about how hard he is working.  What I am doing or have to do is nothing compared to the workouts and things he has to learn in eight and a half weeks. He is my motivation.  My motivation to get through this semester with good grades.  My motivation to train as hard as I can for a full marathon.  Although he is my motivation I know I must do these things for myself as well.  I have a lot of hard classes coming up in the next two years and I want to instill a good work ethic within myself so that I am ready for a bigger work load.  I want to be healthy and reach a goal I have wanted to do sense I started running.
Sense Kyle has been in basic I have found I talk about him and I A LOT.  It's normal for you to talk about the person you are with.  That person is your other half.  The one you spend most time with, have inside jokes with and talk to the most.  Its easy to talk about them or how you feel about them.  My feelings for Kyle have grown sense he has been in basic.  Now I don't know yet if its because I miss him or the fact that I am so proud of everything he is doing but when I start researching Air Force stuff I get super excited, and I'm pretty sure my roommate hates me, but I can't help talking about what I have found.  It connects me too him and thats what I want right now.  But I am starting to see that I need to also focus on myself.  Research things I am interested in.  Yes I love Kyle and yes I want to know a lot about his future career but we are two different people.  A healthy relationship shares a lot of things but each person needs to have their own things too.
Tuesday.....marks three weeks without the boy but only five and a half more to go!

A week has gone by without blogging and its weird to see how much this actually helps me.  To put some of my thoughts down that I may or may not tell people really helps.  Just an FYI to anyone reading this post this is a bit of a deep one.
Three weeks tomorrow Kyle has been gone.  It seems like more but that is just not the case.  I received another letter this Friday and I cannot express how I felt.  Kyle is not one to express his emotions all the time but in this letter he said things I hadn't heard.  I will never tell him this, but I was right.  It seems to be changing him in a way to where he is valuing things more.  He thought it would do the opposite but that isn't the case it seems. This last letter made me excited for the future and happy knowing he was ok.
I did something I would recommend no one with a loved one in the military doing, or at least till their ready.  I went with some friends and saw a war movie tonight.  I saw American Sniper and although it was a fantastic movie I, someone who has been around guns their whole life and have watch movie's like this, jumped every time a shot was fired. I have never jumped like I did tonight.  Although I put on a straight face and let some tears, ok actually a lot of tears, run down my face all I kept wanting to do was run out of that theater and be by myself.  I'm a very social person but when I am upset I would rather be alone.  Thats something Kyle and I have in common and sometimes causes issues.  This movie wasn't just some made up story.  It was real.  A real sniper who fought in battles just like the ones in the movie.  A man who fought for his country and when asked why, said the same thing Kyle does, to protect the ones I love from the evil and to do my duty.  It scared me how similar they were.  Kyle, the character in the movies last name was Kyle ironically but I'll call him from now on by his nickname Legend, just wanted to protect and save as many of his men as possible.  No matter what it took.  No matter how many tours from his family.  No matter how distant he got from his wife.  Legend's wife in the movie made me mad because she would get upset with him for not being there emotionally.  For leaving her another time and then coming back and just thinking about the men he needed to save.  But as I've thought about it I wasn't upset with how they portrayed her character.  I was upset because the odds of Kyle and I having a relationship like them is high. Kyle has never given up on me and I'm not on him.  Thats a done deal but having a relationship with a man in the military is definitely not a one way street. It's a two way, two lane street where communication is always riding.  No Kyle is not my husband, and he won't be for awhile, and no Kyle hasn't been deployed yet, or hopefully in the nearish future, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't start preparing myself.  I know I love him more than I have anyone and I don't see myself with anyone else.  I feel like I'm ready for this.  I may not be watching a military movie for awhile but I will be the one Kyle comes home too.  I'm in this long distance relationship with the air force for the long hall and I'm beyond happy about it.

Kyle has been gone for a week and I have found that the little things are really what I miss the most.  I have been going to his house to hangout with his siblings and being there without him is hard.  No curling up on the couch, no wrestling in the basement, no watching a movie on his taped up laptop, and he wasn't waiting at the garage door for me when I got there.  I always loved getting there and he would be walking to me from the house to the driveway.  Riding in his jeep...it has been one of my favorite things to do with him.  He loves his yeep and seeing it sitting there makes me sad.  These are just some of the little things that have happened just this week to remind me of him during bootcamp.  Everyday I have so much I want to tell him but that is what letters are for and oh boy have I written letters!  

Letters are my way to talk to him and the reason behind this blog.  I found writing to help me cope with not talking to Kyle and now this blog helps me deal with that as well.  He finally got to write to his family and I and I can't tell you how much that first letter means! 

I was with my friend who's boyfriend is in the Navy when I found out he had written.  She looked at me and just said "Go home" so I did!  I have read it over and over and over again so many times.  It is the one thing right now keeping me connected to him and I love it! So now with the joy of knowing he is doing alright I am heading off to school. 

Maybe....this mess needs to be cleaned up and I need to be packed.  I of course have too much stuff but we will make it work!  I think this is one of the most stressful parts of college.  Not knowing what to leave and bring back.  This time leaving will be weird because normally I have Kyle there to give me a kiss and say good luck. It will be different but this is the first of many things that will be different and to get through a long distance relationship you have to cope with different.  And that I am ready to do.   

As I have had a busy last few days, lunches and dinners with friends, debating and then deciding to leave my church, driving through a snow storm and then having an awkward evening with my ex I can barely look at, I was reminded of my past.
A student at U-High and aspiring olympian took his own life.  He was successful, outgoing, kind, and all around a good friend to many I have known my whole life.  Although I never had the privilege to meet him his passing has affected me.  It has made me mourn for those that loved him and knew him but also realize that depression affects everyone. I have been suffering from my depression for six years and at moments I wanted it all to end but because of some people in my life, who don't even know helped me, I have gotten through those thoughts several times.  How do we help those that we don't know need help?  No one knew about the man who just passed this week.  He was outgoing and seemed to loved life but on the inside he was tearing himself apart.
After receiving the first snow fall of the year I let my dog out the next morning and saw the beauty that is untouched snow.  People think I'm crazy because I will always want to live where there is snow but I believe nature is where God's beauty really shines.  The day after our family friend died there was a rainbow in the sky for his wife.  At his funeral it was freezing cold and we all agreed the wind picked up while the family was taking their shots because he wanted one too. The day after the student at U-High died we had one of the most beautiful sunsets I can remember.  A wonderful life was taken from us but God has strange ways of working.  The aspiring olympian gave us that sunset, whether it was just because or he wanted to show us that in dark times we should always look at what is beautiful in our lives.
I have a great family, loyal and loving friends in Kourtney, Emily and all those youth at my church, amazing mentors in people like Steve, Linda, and my teachers from high school, and I have the best second families new and old, the Barrons, Hubers, and Gibsons.  Life can be short.  So live it with who you love.  Do what you want.  And always take a moment to look at what is truly beautiful. You have enough time to do that.

Well I got to spend Christmas day with my boy but New Year's Eve was a bit different.  My parents hit up a concert and my brother was hanging out with his girlfriend.  That left me to fend for myself.  Luckily I have high school friends who wanted to have some fun that night on the dl and we celebrated a little too much.  The girls got a little loud, the boys danced and I worked a seven hour shift on three hours of sleep the next day but it was all worth it!  Justin stayed with us because of his closest friend Alex being with us and I was more happy about that then I would have thought.  I've known him sense kindergarden and we have been mutual friends but until I started dating Kyle I never hung out with him outside of school or church.  Thats how it has been with all of Kyle's friends but for some reason that night Justin leaving was hard for me.  I think it was so hard because as Justin left for his new home in Cali I knew a piece of Kyle was walking away too.  The boys will always have a piece of him I never will and to be close to that for just an hour makes me happy.  My first New Year's and holiday without Kyle was rough but my friends made it so much fun and kept me laughing, even with a little alcohol required.  The next holiday is Valentines Day.  You may think that will be hard but it's already the worst :P.

Also those balloons......yeah my dad took them when he left the concert.  He also did the drunken walk when he was talking to me that night.  Us kids weren't the only ones that had fun ;)

Its the start of the new year and the start of a new journey.  I fell for this boy six months ago and I had to say see you later for the first time six days ago.  Its going to be a journey and I'll take it day by day.  As I started to write letters I found it helped so much so I thought why not start a blog and let me put everything down but also document all the happenings for Kyle.  We can't write everything in letters so I'll be writing it on here.  Wish me luck!