WEBSITE!!!! Getting married. Can't wait.

30 days

Well, here we are. In 30 days from today, I'll be starting my journey westward, to the great state of Arizona. Seems like it's been a long time coming, but at the same time, I can't believe it's almost here. Moving is almost always on my mind, occupying some sort of thought process, whether it's at the forefront of my attention or hanging out near the rear of my brain's priority list. The thing is, the closer I get to January 7th, the more real this thing gets. The deeper I feel it. The more emotional I feel when I think about how few times a year I'll see my family. I'm on the verge of collecting my diploma, taking boards and being a licensed PTA, but that seems so irrelevant right now. Sometimes when I think about the day I leave, how crazy that will be, I get a little choked up, feel a little more anxious, and have doubts. But I know this is what I want. I know more and more when I see the snow, the rain, feel the cold when I lift up my covers of my bed, see how Jessica talks to her parents, how she gets excited when we are talking about our new life, that this is the right choice right now. But it's far from easy. I don't want to miss out on our family growing up - Julia and James getting older, Madison going into the whirlwind of teenage-hood, and little Henry. I don't want to be away as my parents retire, go on long walks, and sit on the front porch as the sun sets in the summer. I don't want to be so far as my parents get older. That scares me the most. I don't want to be unable to see them if they are ill.
I'm almost there, the day to leave. It seems so odd because I've lived at my parents house for 2 and a half years as I've been in school, and they're about to move out of it just as I am leaving. Everything is changing. I'm trying to be ready for this, but a lot is happening all at once. Sometimes I feel lost. Sometimes I'm excited. Mostly I'm just ready for this to happen.

oh man.

Man, it seems like time flies. It feels like just yesterday that Jessica and I decided that we would move together to Arizona once her lease was up, in December of 2010. At the time, December seemed like a lifetime away. Now it's the end of September and time seems to speed up the closer we get to the end of the year. I'm so completely unprepared for a cross-country move that it seems a little silly that I'm even planning one. But I am, and I want this. I want to start a new page in my life and this is how I am going to do it. It's going to be so different. So incredibly different that anything I've ever done in the past. I lived on the OSU camps for 3 years, but I went home at least twice a month and I could literally go home whenever I felt like it. Gone are those days. I live at home right now, but our family is so busy that I see everyone once a week, at the most. Sometimes it's longer. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a bit of crying when I leave. I am excited for a lot of reasons though, and not the least of which is getting a fresh new look with the weather. It has been unseasonably wet this September and I feel like I'm in the doldrums with all of these grey, rainy days that we are being punished with.
I'll miss so much here and I'm especially weary of leaving the little ones. I have a pretty good relationship with them now and I feel like whenever I come back they're going to have forgotten how we used to play and only think of me as that weird uncle they only see a couple of times a year. I know how I felt about those uncles when I was young, and I don't want that to happen to Julia and James, and especially little Henry. I didn't get a chance to know him.
Time grows short, the time to move is near. I just hope I can be as ready as possible when that day comes.

Song and dance

There’s something about listening to music that puts my mind at ease. Sometimes I listen intently - I want to know every note, ever lyric, intimately. There are other times where music is simply in the background of whatever I’m doing and I barely notice it. But it’s there. And I feel like I need it. It’s one of my favorite pastimes... Just lying on my bed, listening to music. Most of the time I don’t even care what kind of music it is. Music that can make me dance, think, dream of a better life... anything. I think it’s amazing what kind of an effect music can have on someone - an infectious beat can make people get up in front of people and try to dance (me!) or a mellow song can relax you. Music triggers so many memories - how many special times are brought back when you hear the song that you have associated with that music? It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. I can’t get enough of it.

Move?

Yesterday I spent the majority of my time at work thinking about things that are entirely not related to my job. I thought about how much I feel like I’ve wasted of my ability. I like to think of myself as pretty smart. I also know one thing about myself: I’m about as much of an underachiever as there is. I skated by on the bare minimum in college. Now instead of doing something that really could be special, I’m getting an associates degree at a trade school. Maybe in the grand scheme of things that’s not that disappointing, but to me, it is. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic. I know how much I could do and I see how much of that I’ve really done and that makes me want to puke.
So that’s the pretense to this blog post. Today is May 8th, 2011, which happens to also be Mother’s day. I told my dad today that my plan was to move to Arizona by December of this year. This was probably a bad idea, to reveal to your mother that you’ll be moving to the other side of the country on mother’s day. I love my girlfriend so much, and her parents are now living there. I know how much my mom misses her family and I don’t want Jessica to regret living her life so far from her family. I also know how much I’ve messed up so far. I don’t want to make this biggest mistake in my life thus far (On a side note, I’ve wanted to move to Phoenix ever since about 2005 when my friend TJ moved out there with his family, so this isn’t totally out of left field for my family). The only problem is that I’ll miss family more than anything. I love them more than I could explain. I know I’ll be moving. I know I’ll miss them. I just don’t want to add to my mistakes. I want to break out of this slump and become something great. Maybe being a great boyfriend and future husband is something great. I just want to all that I can. I just want to do the right thing for once.

Jessica is my best friend. She's held that position since sophomore year of Ohio State, and now she is my lovely girlfriend. She's there whenever I need her. She understands me better than anyone else. She knows exactly how I feel on the most complex and frustrating feelings. She's a godsend and I am undeserving of her love. I love her more than I could ever express in writing.

Let me whine for a moment...

Things are nuts. They really are. Really nothing that you plan comes to fruition like you thought it would, and so many things that you hadn’t accounted for spring up and (usually) rear their ugly head. Life is crazy. And hard. Maybe you’ll disagree with me, but even as a white American male, life is hard. It’s true that I don’t have many of the challenges that much of the world faces, even those in THIS country. But life is still difficult. For starters, once you get used to living a certain way, it is a straight up SLAP in the face when you can no longer live like that. That’s ridiculously hard. Harder than I would have thought. Cutting back is my least favorite phrase right now.
Another reason why life is hard is because as a white American male who was raised in a reasonably affluent household, there are expectations. Expectations to choose the right major (oops!), get good grades (nope!) graduate (yes, got that one right) go to grad school (how about trade school?) and graduate with a job in a field that is going to make you money. More money than your dad made, buying a bigger house that your parents did. Being a better man that your dad. I feel those pressures. And I have not, and many times feel like I cannot, reach those expectations. I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining.... but I am. I am complaining. My life is good for the most part. But to me, it’s hard. I don’t like it right now.
But it’s not all bad. My girlfriend is honestly about as good of a girlfriend as you could ask for. I’m pretty broke right now and she’s helped me out tremendously. She’s overwhelmingly supportive and that’s what I need right now. She truly is a God-send. She’s all I could have asked for and more. I love her to pieces. Not to mention, she’s an excellent photographer. She makes even ME look half-way decent, and that is a challenge.
But yeah, life update : suck status right now, for the most part.