A little about family...

Here in Okinawa, I have just completed an eight week course at the Staff Non-Commissioned Officer Academy - Sergeants Course, was very intense, and I am happy to have completed it.

Lyn has given me her medical and dental paperwork, and I can only hope that it is correct for when I turn it into the Naval Hospital for her to receive her SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) that will allow her to come here. Being apart is really tearing us apart, and making it hard for us to be a family.

Having married in December 2009, it is now August 2011, we have been together four of those months. Our marriage is stressed, we are growing apart and it is hurting both Lyn and I deeply. We want to be together, but our past experiences, the rought times together, have made it difficult to find, build and develop trust. That first six months to a year, when you new married couple really works out the big kinks in there marriage, is something that Lyn and I lacked.

I still have hope.

Am I going to bare my soul...?

Sitting here I am listening to the song Home sung by Michael Buble. Posting is not something that I like to do. As my mom said in her blog, I am a person that plans the future along with other things, such as what I say and how I say. I would that my thoughts and the words that follow be refined to my true desire of word, not a half ripened apple with much potential never achieved.

You whom are reading this, am I going to take the time here to bare myself, to truly express myself? Sharing of my soul with the general public is neither my desire nor something I would allow to happen. On the converse side I have a desire to express myself, to say what cannot be said, to do what cannot be done. Cannot? Better said as "should not".

Potatoes, taste good cooked, twice cooked, mashed or even raw. Make excellent weapons of opportunity when handy.

Here we go...

It is Sunday night over here on the East Coast. It is a holiday weekend and I have tomorrow off. Thinking about heading to the mountains for a little hiking, but I need to be back by eight o'clock. As an alternative I could head down to a National Park South of here for some good hiking.

I am in school, Lyn is on her mission. I graduate in two months, she come home around that same time. We need to figure out when we will be married, if we are going to be married. Obviously this is my hope that we will marry.

Lyn, how do I describe her. She is wonderful, sweet, kind, full of the spirit, such strength. I love her with all my heart and it is very hard to imagine a life without her. She has helped me become the man that I want to be, to focus myself and to persue those things that truly matter, family, the Gospel. All else is of little consequence.

Looking at pictures of my family, I wonder when I will see them again. My brother Evan was married recently, finally, to a wonderful young woman. But I was unable to attend and I ask myself, is all of this distance truly worth it? I miss births, weddings, birthdays, holidays, dinners, church, hugs, laughter, the good times, the bad times, I miss it all and look at what I do. Coming home every night is my dream and my desire. But right now, I need to serve, to sacrifice, to do my part for those that I love. Someone has too, right?

Family, it is why we are here, it is why I do what I do. Life without family, just isn't life.

Fair winds and following seas.