Traveling Again

I’m sitting in the airport alone. People are in groups. Talking, laughing, watching videos on their phones – all for my entertainment. I watch them, study how they look at each other, catching the little looks they give. It’s fun to sit next to a pretty girl and watch all the guys check her out. It’s predicable and quite funny.

I’m sure there’s only a few people in the world and I’ve seen all these ones before. They may have been wearing different clothes, in different groups, but I’m sure it’s the same 200  or so faces I’ve seen before. I wonder if the personalities are as limited.

The kids are entertaining too. They are on an adventure. Some are tired and cry, others are bored and whine for electronic entertainment, but my favorites are the ones running around playing. They just seem so intent on living in this place that is really just waiting.

This place is waiting. That’s all you do here. You wait. You wait to go through security, wait for the plane, wait for the plane to take off, wait for the flight to be over, wait to de-board. And after all that waiting, you’ve got to wait for your luggage.

I always expect to see someone I know. This is part to the fact that there are only 200 or so faces in the world. I would be the happiest person in the world if randomly I saw someone I know and they happend to be going to the same place I am, on the same flight. But I don’t see anyone I know, just those familiar faces. I feel like I should know them. Like that guy over there. Did I meet him at some event? Did I go to high school ten years ago with that woman there? Could that be a friend of a friend that I met once, a long, long time ago?

Found

I found this written down, and I’d love to hear what you guys think it’s about.

———–

I catch myself looking for you. I don’t mean to, but I find myself looking in the faces of the people on the street, in crowds at the supermarket, in the car next me on my drive home just to get a glimpse of your face. I expect to see you on the other side of Wal-Mart, when I stand in that one spot that you can see from one side of the store to the other.

I know I’m not supposed to look for you. I know you’re not going to be there and it’s breaks me each time I think I do see you. It’s not you, it’s never you. I don’t know why I look. I don’t know why I open myself to such pain. It’s stupid. I know better. I’m not sure I’d even recognize you if I even saw you; your face is a faded memory, almost an ethereal dream that I keep trying to force in this harshly lit life.

You’re my world. You’re my life. I feel like half a man without you here by my side. Everyday seems like a shell of itself. Even these phrases seem cliché and powerless. They don’t convey the feeling or the longing or anything.

Nothing is the same without you. Watching a movie isn’t the same without you there, to snuggle, to laugh with. Dinner is such a lonely time. There’s no one to talk to, to discuss the deeper things of life, to share an anecdote with. Just me alone with my food. There’s one plate. One glass. One fork and one knife. Each one taken from its kind and used, alone. Then discarded dirty. It’s like even my dishes recognized this loneliness, this disparity of eating by yourself.

But I press on. It’s what you would want. To be strong. To live my life and be happy. I hold this tiny, flicking flame against this darkness and against despair, knowing that one day we will be together.

———–

So what was the author saying? Who was he saying it to? How did it make you feel? Why does this seem like an english prompt?

The “bug”

So Friday night and Saturday I went hunting. I think I might have caught the bug. The only think that stopped me from going to the store and buying a compound bow and its ilk was the amount (or lack of) sleep I got the night before.

This morning I woke up and was thinking about it still. Then I remembered the email that I am supposed to be getting later this month, and the one in February; the emails that will start my first foray into bike racing.

Biking and hunting. Both activities are on my goals list and they sound like they would be compatible, but my resources are not well developed enough to support both of those “hobbies”.

Money:
Let’s be truthful – those things could be pricy. Racing means that my bike needs to be maintained better (spare parts, things breaking), I need to spend money on nutrition (energy food isn’t cheap… or tasty), and I will have to travel to the majority of my races (extra gas money, hotels, food on the road). And hunting? I own a hunting license and that’s about it. I will need a bow (and arrows), some hunting clothes, knifes, and some targets to practice on. And practicing! That leads me to my next point: time.

Time:
TIME! I’m yet to be a multi-millionaire with a butt-load of passive income, so I have to do what everyone else does and work a wonderful, amazing 40-hour a week job. That’s 40 hours out of a the 5 day work week that I can’t put towards either of these “hobbies”. Subtract another 40 for sleeping, another 10 for eating and showering and all that jazz, I’m left with only 20 hours during a 5 day week to put into practicing. Now while I’m not starting at zero with my skill in either of these “hobbies” (I know how to ride a bike and shoot a bow), I’m not at the level where I could “compete” with other riders or hit a target at more than 15 yards.

So I have either 20 hours to put into shooting arrows into a bale of hay or 20 hours to spend working out and riding. Not to mention all the other things I need/like to do during the week: Church, hanging out with friends, other projects that I’m working on.

And the weekends! If I have a race, that means that weekend I can’t go hunting. And if I have them back to back, that means that I might not get to hunt, or not get to race.

So. To sum it all up, I’m going to focus on bike racing. I know I have a habit of jumping from one activity to another, which ever one holds my interest at the moment, and I kind of wish that I didn’t. Bike racing called dibs by being what I was excited for last month, and something I’ve already focused on and I just can’t “drop it” cause something newer came along.

Plus, I hunting seasons over soon. And there’s always next year.

Joy’s Birthday Party

I just realized something. The last few posts I have made, with the exception of the First Friday post, all of them have been from birthday parties.

Well, what’s one more?

Today was Joy’s first birthday party, and here’s a picture of the birthday girl giving her signature look:

And here’s a video of us singing happy birthday to her. I was pretty excited about my angle and the shot I was taking, but, well, you’ll just have to watch:

And then the birthday girl finally got to enjoy her cake: