May 11 2008

So here I am. The weekend is almost over. This means that we have one more weekend to go through. I looked at the calender today and thought to myself, "wow thats it huh by Wednesday we will be at less than double digits in the number of days until I get back to Suzanna."

I got to talk to her briefly today. The sound of her voice was so good to hear. It brought this sense of euphoria over me. I relaxed, I was so tense until I called her. The sound of her voice is something amazing, something soothing. I didnt talk to her for long because she was with her mother helping her out with some things and spending mothers day with her. So I will give her a call later on. We went just about 2 weeks with out talking. By far the hardest 2 weeks. I knew it was going to be hard but we survived. I never want to go through not being able to talk to her like that again.

Tomorrow we pull into Mazatlan Mexico for a few days. We get in sometime in the early afternoon but I am working until god knows when. I gotta catch up on work when we have the fast internet connection. I am off Tuesday, I tried to stand duty for someone but they shot me down saying I need at least one day off so instead I will hang around the ship and continue to catch up on work. I have duty all day and night Wednesday and we leave Thursday and we are on the home stretch. Back out to sea for 7 or 8 days. We pull into San Diego and I finally get to go home. Back to my lover, my heart, my soul, our home, our life. I fly out on the 24th at 6am and am home at 430pm. Suzanna is picking me up from the airport in Providence RI and I cant wait, that moment when we lock eyes, reach for each other, touch each other and then feel each others kiss again. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. My goodness I cant wait.

Every day and every night I pray to god to get me home. While i bide my time and wait it out I know it will be soon. I have worked so hard to stay positive through all of this, to show how much I love Suzanna and now I am almost home.

I keep having day dreams of our future, dreams at night of our family. Today I had a day dream while listening to some music. It was all there, it was perfect. The sights; palm trees, white sand beaches, ocean waves, the orange and pinks reflecting off the ocean as the sun was setting, the birds singing, wind whistling, Suzannas eyes locked on mine. It was perfect. I could feel the love, it gave me goose bumps.

My god I cant wait I love and miss her so much.

my god i love her and miss her. please make these last few days go by as fast as you can. i feel like i am sitting in purgatory. my mind is so scattered feeling today. at dinner i dipped my chicken into pudding intstead of the bbq sauce i have. just to give you an idea of where it is at.

but please god just bring me home in one peice safe and sound to my love Suzanna.

Lately I have been insipiried, felt insipired to start writing agian. A lot. every day I write in Suzanna and I's journal. Every day I try to write her a poem, I try to steer away from the typical email and write her a letter. I do it because it makes me feel good, it makes her feel good and it is a beautiful way to express things.

A long time ago, during highschool and a few years of college I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories. I am really getting back into it again. My mind feels free. She has libeartaed a part of me that I love. She has helped me feel again. The best thing in the world. I love her so much for all of that. I feel that I am sub par right now but with some work I will be back to where I was. I cant wait to leave her a poem or letter every day that I write out and stuff into something of hers to find when she goes into her purse, pocket, drawer, car any where.

When I get home in a few short weeks I want to continue to write things for her. I think at that time the both of us will hate email. So I want to hand write things and leave them around the house for her to find. There is no way to really express how much I love her, how much she means to me. But I do everything I can. Everyday when I think about getting home to her and being with her forever I get these butterflies in my stomach, my hands tingle and my mouth gets dry. It is pure love and the feeling cant be beat. I love her so much.

I talked for a while to a guy on board about her today. About the time we ran into each other, the time she texted me, the first time we kissed. Oh it was amazing. All of it. I knew the first time I talked to her I had to have her, I knew the first time I kissed her I had to have her forever.

She truly is my everything.

"ballarena you must of seen her, dancing in the sand. now shes in me, always with me. tiny dancer in my head"

I hear this song and I think of Suzanna. Deciding to ask her to be my wife is the greatest feeling in the world. I cant wait to do it. I get home in 2 weeks and shortly after that time I will be doing so. I cant disclose the information out of fear she may read it here, but she knows I want to do it.

I love you sweetie...

Isnt she beautiful

I miss her so much that it causes physical pain, but the love I have for her over takes that pain. This is all almost over. I just want to sleep for 2 weeks straight just so that I can be home. Once it is over it is over and we will never have to endure being apart from one another ever again.

"The sparkles bubble over and her eyes are like champagne." - Josh Ritter. That line has been stuck in my head for quite some time now. Every time I hear it I think about looking into Suzannas eyes and how beautiful they are, how beautiful she is and how at peace I am in those moments.

I am 17 nights away from being home and back in our bed together with her. That is the moment I look so forward too. The day they we first lay eyes upon each other in the airport after 6 long weeks of being pulled apart. We are put back together just as fast as it happened. I can not wait. I long for that moment. It is the home stretch.

She is the only one I love. The only one for me. We have been talking more about a wedding and a family. Those 2 things I look so forward to with her. I get excited just talking about it. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us and I can not absoluty can not wait for the rest of our lives together.

It was just over 4 weeks ago I found out I was being recalled to active duty. A lot has happened since then. I obviously left for one thing. Which was the hardest thing I have had to do in a very long time for a few reasons.

1) Being I did not choose to or want to be doing this
2) I hate that I had to leave my girlfriend behind my love. That is the worst feeling in the world. Knowing that you have to go and there is nothing. Nothing at all that you can do about it.
3) My life is on hold. My relationship is at a standstill. It is so hard.

The only good that has come out of this is that I am getting to leave very early. I am going home in 19 days. I have been gone for just about 3 1/2 now and will be home in just about 2 1/2 which is a huge relief.

I have learned a lot about myself, about what I want in life and where I want to take my life. I realized that my girlfriend I want to ask to be my wife. I have never been 100% sure on anything in my life as I am to that. I learned to be patient, I learned about all of the mistakes I made. I am left to try to fix them and think about them every day. I hope that I can correct everything that I have done.

I handled things so poorly before I had to go. I just kind of shut off. I did not know what to do. I was so confused, so lost and so hurt. I remember being told by all of these people in the reserves for the Coast Guard that they never got recalled so when I left active duty I went into the reserves to earn a little extra cash figuring it coudlnt hurt. I made it a year and a half and then it happened. I got recalled. The biggest slap in the face, welcome to reality wake up call that I have ever had. It fucked a lot of things up in my life. I left my girl my one love, my job, my family, school and now I have to go home and pick up the pieces. While that is ok to do. I dont mind doing it and fighting for what I believe in, I just know if I had listened to my instinct when I went into the reserves this would have never happened.

I have never fought so hard for something that I believe in as I am now. I believe in my girlfriend and our future together, I believe in a normal civilian life and never having to worry about leaving like this again. I believe in the future Suzanna and I have talked about. I believe in all of this because I believe in love. While this is a hard situation for anyone. I know that it is almsot over and that when it is over. It is over.

So when I get home just a few weeks from today. I have a lot to do. In the first few days that I am home I have a list of priorites.
1) asking Suzanna to marry me
2) Fixing all of my mistakes
3)Going to Boston and leaving the Coast Guard
4) enjoying my summer home with my one true love
5) Taking some summer classes and getting back into the swing of things
6) spending as much time with Suzanna as I can
7) Riding my bike

While I could compile a list bigger than that. Those are top.

I just know that I can not wait to get home

It has been a few weeks since I left. It has been a few long weeks. Weeks I wish I didnt have to endure. Weeks I wish Suzanna did not have to endure. But she is being strong. As I am doing the same. For that I owe her the world.

I am doing all that I can from where I can with all of the resources I can. The best news that has come of all of this is that I can go home early. That was the most exciting news I have yet to get. It means I can get back to Suzanna, to life, to our life, to school and to normalcy.

It has been a true trial of faith in both of us. I know that she cares, that this matters to her. I know that she knows that I care and I love her with all of my heart. All that I can really do is show her that this matters. I can do my very best to show her from where I am that I can be trusted and that I am the faithful, loyal and honest person I told her I am. We have had our ups and downs which I understand can make things harder. I know they can. But I am putting in every last bit of effort from here and will do the same when I get home.

Before I left she had asked me to do one thing. One task, to show her that I am serious that I want to be committed to and that I am committed to her. I failed at that task. While it was all that I wanted to do I fucked it up. I want to fix all of that with her, for her, for me and for us. I am willing to go through anything and everything for her, to be with her and to show her how much all of this matters.

I miss her so much. I do everything I can to stay strong and keep it together. So that she knows that I want this. I want this more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. For the first time in my life I think about marriage, children and future with someone and it does not scare me. It sounds perfect, it feels perfect to me it is perfect to me. All of this I want to do with her more than anything else in this whole world. I want her to be my world.

After lots of thinking. Lots of long days of thinking(all though there really wasnt much thinking to decide this). I have come to a few realizations. I do want to marry Suzanna while I never had a doubt about that I just know that it truly is what I want to do. I love her so much. There is nothing that I do not love about being with her. She makes me feel completle. I felt so empty inside until I met her. She is everything I have ever wanted in a partner, life long friend, lover and companion.

Now to finalize this and show her this all I have to do is ask her to marry me, to be mine forever, to love me the way I love her, to care for me as I will for her. Which I want to do and I am going to do the when I get home. I want to keep this a surprise I have the exact moment that I want to do it already planned. I have done some searching and found an abundance of shops in Mexico and looked and found the ring I want to get. I cant wait. This is the most exciting purchase I am going to make to date.

Having to leave someone you love so very much because the government tells you to is the worst feeling in the world.

I am leaving this establishment as soon as I can so I never have to leave her again.

You have officially been recalled to active duty

Not the email you want to read early in the morning, but I got to this past Monday.

Its not for an extremely long time. But it still sucks. An unwanted interruption of my life. I have to withdraw from school, take a leave of absence but most importantly leave my girlfriend behind for 130 days. Not my idea of an awesome summer at all.

I will be spending my summer out to sea someplace in the south pacific ocean doing some bullshit waste of time work that no one really wants to be doing.

But it could be worse I could have been called up for a year and sent places other than the ocean. Just up rooting my life sucks.

So I am sitting here with a bottle of wine I didnt even bother grabbing a glass to pour it into just drink it straight out of the bottle. But I have this wine and the Yankees game on thinking about how I would much rather spend my summer nights doing this and sitting here with my girlfriend who I have to leave to fend for her self in our home all alone. The best I can do is leave her with my love and money to make sure she has a roof over her head.

This is just going to turn into a drunken rambling of me talking about leaving my love and going away when I dont want to, so I will just stop right where I am......

Cheers

Illegal U Turns on Highways

Maybe you can see where this is going already.

This past Sunday, Easter Sunday. I was on my way to work. I had to work 3-11. At about 215 or so I was on I90 east bound moving right along taking note of the traffic and how little there was due to the holiday.

So here I am minding my own enjoying the new Willie Nelson album thinking about work.

I was doing a nice 75mph or so moving right along. Up ahead I see this car pull into the U Turn spot, ya know the ones that say NO U TURNS. I see the car stop and inch toward the shoulder on the fast lane a bit and I knew it, I knew they were going to pull right out in front of me. Before I knew it was screaming up behind a car in the fast lane going 30 maybe 40 tops so I attempted to pull into the middle lane to pass but as I did so, so did this person. So I then attempted to go back into the fast lane as they did the same. Panic started to set in. I tried to pull back into the center lane to avoid hitting them.

Well I avoided them for sure as my car did a 180 slid across the middle and fast lane right into the guard rail at 70 or 75mph. I hit the guard rail spun some more slid sideways for another 20 or 30ft and came to a resting stop blocking the whole fast lane. Thank goodness it was Easter Sunday or I would have been quite screwed if there had been more traffic.

I must admit the sounds, site and intensity of the impact were quite spectacular. Hearing my tires skid, car hit the guard rail with one of the loudest metal on metal thuds I had ever heard, the air bag deploying the smoke from the air bag, the site of fluids spraying everywhere from under my hood and the scenery just spinning with me.

So here I am stopped blocking the whole lane, I think I sat there for all of 3 second in the my car I moved my head left, right and down. Nothing hurt my fingers didnt tingle so I felt it was ok to move. I get out and see the car stopped about 200 feet down the highway on the other side. I called 911 hung up and waited.

I started to walk to get the other drivers attention. I then decided it was a bad idea to walk down there since most people passing by were preoccupied by my car which was clearly destroyed and blocking a whole lane of traffic. So I headed back to my car to wait for the police to arrive.

As the police arrive the car that made the illegal actions decided to make their way back onto the highway. I was never able to get close enough to get a plate number and they got away. I could care less that my car is totaled and that I have to get a new one. Inf act this was a new one I had it for 3 months. But the fact that there are people out there who will just drive off knowing they just potentially ruined someones life or disrupted it in some sort of way.

I have never really been so irate or let down by something like this. The fact that they never asked if I was ok but just drove off knowing they would be getting a ticket and help responsible for this accident. I should really just be counting my blessings that I walked away without a scratch on me.