i think i'll start this up again

so ally needs me to update this so she can stalk me and i decided i'd do it. i dont know who'll read it anymore since i am no longer on some big journey hundreds of miles from home, but nonetheless i'll write whats on my heart and mind every once in a while.

so i guess the main thing is school...i dont really care to be in school right now, i'd rather be doing something else, but i'll make it through. i think its so bad because i still dont feel completely at peace as to what i am going to do with myself once i graduate. thats totally my fault because i haven't actively and completely sought God in that area of my life. i just seem to turn to him when i need a quick answer to satisfy the person who asks me, "so what are you going to be when you grow up?" most of the time i confidently lie just to pacify their curiousity...but deep down i always say...i dont know, i feel torn. this week i will make time to call some physical therapy clinics to try and schedule some observation hours...i have to decide this because i need peace about it. other than the nagging, "what shall i be when i grow up" question that is constantly in my thoughts, school is ok...its school. its harder this year and its going to take a lot more effort than i normally like to give, but i'll do it...somehow, some way. i have to do a senior design project with a group and we have chosen to build a robot that mimics certain characteristics of a bug...it should be interesting considering none of us have ever built a robot. i pray we end up with something that works come april when we have to present this thing!

this year so far has been a little hard...besides the school stuff, my world is slowly changing. my life will never be the same after what i experienced this summer, but i am now also having to deal with the loss of someone very dear to me. this is the first time i've lost someone so close and it hurts...bad, to be honest.

my great-uncle percy left us 8 days ago. though he is better off where he is now, the world is a little less brighter without him. i don't even know where to begin because its still so hard to believe that i'll never see his little black truck parked in that parking spot behind my grandparents house again, the chair at the head of the table next to my grandfather wont be the throne of the most loving guy ever anymore cause someone else will take it, i wont ever look out our window on a saturday afternoon and see he and uncle brent spinning in circles in the pond in his new boat cause they couldn't figure out how to work it, i wont ever hear his loud "AAAHHH" with that deep sounding grunt that he always did when he had worked too hard and then sat down too long and was too stiff to get up, i wont ever get to give him that huge hug he always liked and walk away smelling like his cologne, i'll miss seeing him mow yards...he loved that more than anything and he always wanted to mow our yard with his new lawn mower, i'll miss his stories...all 4 million of them, i'll miss hunting with him and hearing him yell at uncle brent over the cb, i'll miss the way he introduced me to his friends....and more than anything i'll miss hearing him say "i love you, kristi"...especially the way he looked at me all teary eyed when he told me the last couple of times that i saw him. there is no doubt in my mind that he loved me and my family...gosh, Kale was his favorite...he thought kale hung the moon. when i think about the fact that he was my great-uncle and most people can't even tell you who their great-uncles are, i feel so blessed to have been able to have the kind of relationship i had with him. he never held anything back...he told you often he loved you and he told us more times than i can count how proud he was of us. he was one of a kind...there will never be anyone like him. it still doesn't seem real that he's gone...he was never supposed to leave this earth.

i cant help but think how comforting it is in the midst of our loss for every member of the family to know what they had meant to him...he made sure he told all of us before he left us. my resolution is to be the kind of person he was in that respect...to tell those you care about most that you love them, that you are there for them no matter what and that you are so proud of them. what a lasting impression the conversations between my uncle percy and i have left on me. those conversations when he shared with me how much he loved me, and how very proud he was of me will never be forgotten.

make it a point to share with the ones you care about most how much you love them...if that big ole manly man could break down crying while telling his great niece how much he loved her...then i think we can all do it. we owe it to ourselves and to others.