Thoughts on Life and Living
(At the end of this post, I have a “funny small story” from this trip.)
As I sat there listening to the passionate, venerable nurse speak about her 37 years of serving in the Arabian Desert, I was mesmerized. She had faithfully served in this little desert hospital, appropriately named the Oasis Hospital, in the midst of the United Arab Emirates for over half of her 71 years of life.
Her name was
It was 3:30am last night when it happened. The previous night it was around 2:45am. As for now, even as stand up from this chair for a break, it happens again and again and again. Curious? Well, I started back working out five days ago. After four months of complete and total physical lethargy, I am back crushing my body so that it might live. Right now, even the most basic of movements makes me question my will to live. I’m only partially speaking in hyperbole. I am hurting.
Since November, I have traveled a lot, eaten more (mainly disgusting food you eat when living out of a suitcase), and exercised almost none. The result . . . eight pounds gained and general physical malaise in every way. I knew it was time to get back on the horse, but I was just slow to mount. Thankfully, an old friend moved back to town who makes it his business to destroy his friends for their good.
Alex Detmering is a university English teacher by day and a professional trainer by night (he is a physical trainer in America). Michael Gregory, Tyler Leuck, and I are the willing victims of Alex’s torturous workout regimens and the recipients of his motivational yelling of statements like “do it!” and “butt down, heads up!” and “go outside to puke!”.
As I woke up this morning and did something that I have never done before in my life (popped an Advil prior to breakfast), I questioned my desire to keep submitting to Alex and his brutal ways of getting my softening body back into fighting shape. “Why do I do this?” dominated by thoughts as I limped over, with the gracefulness of a wounded rhino, to brush my teeth.
The answer is easy; [Read more…]
(This article is in “My thoughts on weddings. . . (a series)” that I did during June and early July. If you have not read the other posts, I suggest you click here for an overview of the series and past articles.)
It was a few months prior to my graduation from college. Life was crazy, but school was slowing down. My sister Betsy was getting married in April. You see, I love both of my sisters as much as is possible for siblings to love each other. I was, and continue to be, fortunate to have sisters whom are also close friends. To this day, there is nothing I enjoy more than spending time with Betsy and Becky. Seriously.
Anyway, Betsy getting married was a big deal to me. I was excited for her and proud of her. My biggest desire was to get her an awesome gift.
Problem. . . I had a sum total of ZERO money. None. I could ask my Dad for money to buy this awesome gift, but this just didn’t seem right. He would have happily obliged, but still it didn’t seem right. I wanted to get Betsy a gift that expressed a fraction of my love for her (and Bill. . . my equally awesome brother-in-law). What to do, what to do??? [Read more…]