"How I Met Your Mother"

I am a fan of telling stories, like Deckard Cain roaming the town of Tristram encouraging people to stay awhile and listen. I just doubt anyone is really interested. Story telling is one of the reason I'm drawn to "How I Met Your Mother," listening to Ted's journey through life finding his way to the person he loves. During the months preparing for my proposal to Sara, I started to wonder about the story I would tell if I God-willing have children one day. Sitting back and thinking about my life, there were a lot of interesting stories and a lot of important parts of my life that led me to Sara. I've been the over-the-top romantic, the awkward single nerd, the hormone driven manwhore, the "perfect" boyfriend, and the overly protective borderline psycho....just to become what I should be, Sara's future husband. So like Ted with the Internet as my children forced to listen, here is the story of how I met my future wife, Sara.

Chapter 1: Catalyst

For any female that I ever made feel special, flattered by a compliment, found comfort in a hug or appreciated how I treated them, a bit of that credit goes to Kara Kennedy. She was the first girl I hugged. The first girl I protected. The first girl I'd talk hours too. The first girl I gave a pet name too. She was the catalyst.

I was a really awkward chubby kid in my elementary school days. Huge cheeks, bad clothes, big glasses. I imagine that's what Kara saw when she first met me. But when I met her, something about her captivated me. Her big eyes, soft cheeks, wide smile. I immediately found her beautiful. We didn't begin a real friendship until middle school. We started to develop a friendship and eventually I started to develop a crush. One night, with the encouragement of my good friend Trevor, I decided to tell her my feelings. It just happened to be a very inconvenient night to do so. She was having a sleepover, so with 5 ruthless middle school girls giggling in the background and me on speakerphone, I stumbled over the words "will you go out with me?" The giggling grew, Kara remained quiet, more uncomfortable moments passed before Kara finally responded... a gentle rejection. Even at a young age I gotten use to the routine of rejection. Awkward and rushed hellos, never making eye contact, and an abandoned friendship. But Kara wasn't appalled by my feelings for her. She wasn't awkward around me. She didn't mock my feelings or ignored me. She was kind, sweet, and caring. It so something was different than what I was accustomed too. She was actually concerned about my feelings, she was actually paying more attention to me. I was officially wrapped around her finger.

Me and Kara started to spend more time together, our relationship becoming even closer. I was becoming her best friend. I was the guy who's shoulder she could cry on, the guy she could talk to for hours, the guy who would stand up to others who would be teasing her, I was the guy who tried to be there for her in every way. She would smile and hug me, tell me how much I met to her, that made it all worth it for me. I made her feel special, and with every smile, with every hug, with every show of appreciation, I melted a little bit more inside.

I'd bear witness to a lot of her relationships (we were in middle school after all). Each time the end results was me waiting to comfort her with open arms. Every start of a relationship would crush me, and every end would crush me even more. With the end of each relationship would come a list of things the other guy did wrong, I took it to be like an instruction manual. Everything those other guys did wrong, I wanted to do right. Her standards for men became the standard I held myself too.

Life continued into high school and with it came changes. Kara started to have more serious relationships and I was branching out on my own. We keep our friendship but it was a shadow of its former self. We both realized it, but their was nothing we could do dispite how much we cared for each other.... time goes on and people change. Typical high school drama started to decimate our relationship until one day during an argument I walked out on her. That instant I left her behind and it would take me well into college to get over all that happened between us. I remember a friend got a text from her asking if I would be coming back down to Tampa for Thanksgiving my freshman year. When my friend told me this the thought of confronting her again made me nauseous.

Sometime last year she found me on FaceBook. I always knew that day she'd pop up on FaceBook would come but it didn't make it any less surprising. But there wasn't any linger feelings of anger, just the feeling that it was nice to hear from an old friend.

She was the catalyst, the one who set everything in motion. Our relationship taught me about how I wanted to treat a female, specially the one that I fall in love with, and without it I could of never been ready for mine and Sara's.

"The Way You Look Tonight"

There we were

Laying down on my bed, her fingers running through my hair.

"I wonder what it would be like if we were together"

"Probably like this......."

Two years ago, I was ready to pack it in. I was ready to start up my new life and adventure out on my own. I was so jaded with romance that I figured I just needed to rebuild and regroup.

And then there she was. Handing me a sword, decorated just as she described she would but I always took as a joke. One side, full of glitter and the words "Sword of Justice" running down the blade. The other with blood and lighting bolts.

As my eyes connected with hers I knew that she was everything I was ever looking for. The kind of person I'd lay in bed and think, "if I just had a woman like that.." Afraid of this, even thinking I was undeserving of such a person I established all the walls I could. But as only she could, she found a way to deconstructed them all.

She was everything I could possibly of prayed for.........two years later, she still is.

Happy anniversary Sweetheart.

I love you.

"Eldery Woman Behind The Counter In a Small Town"

I've always been a guy who thought it was better to take the chance than to have regrets. But it makes me wonder about that guy who always takes a chance. The guy that for better or worse chooses to put himself out there knowing that the results could...and have... crushed him. I wonder about that guy. If he is happy.

Is it better to live your life questioning "what if" or living with the consequences of the chances you've taken?

"Time is never time at all, you can never leave without leaving a piece of youth"

I have two old online journals. They usually act as wasted space out there on the net, but to me they are an archive of the person I used to be. Many of the entries are difficult to read, not only because of the horrible grammatical mistakes but the also the ridiculous content. How could of I written some of that crap? But I think about the kid who wrote those entries. Typing away on his computer, filled with so much anxiety, confusion and angst. Exposing his soul out there for the whole world to see. Would that kid like the man that he became? If we were to met at a coffee shop and talk, would he think I am just another person that doesn't feel like he feels? Another person that lacks the emotional perception to see things as the way he see them? And what about me? Would I just think the kid was some whiny punk that needs to realize that life isn't all sunshine and farts? Tell him to suck it up and stop being such a emo kid?

Or would we be able to sit and talk, sharing stories and laughs? A beer in my hands and a chai tea in his. Would I be able to place my hands on his shoulder and let him know that despite the disappointments and pitfalls of his life that he'll survive, he'll be a better man in the end. Would help me rediscover my spontaneity, my courageousness? Things that I've find fading in the loom of adulthood?

Tuesday, March 22 2005
The bruises have gone away and the cuts have stop bleeding. My heart is beating again.......

I look up at the stars and they are brighter than they've ever been and the moonlight is leading the way.....

................................I'm 100%

Friday, March 22 2002
Today, I went back to my old school... Walker Middle School. It was to say the least, freaky. Everything seems so much smaller now. It truely mad me realized how much I have grown.... Its weird... I walked past the place where I asked out Kara for the third time and my other classes rooms where I was a small pathetic loser and enter the lunch room where I was just a kid who didn't know anything, and it made me feel so weird. Did I actully grow that much? .....blah......... All I got to say about that.... blah........

Ever think that you at somethings and/or someone way to much for granted. Like last night, I realized I take a lot of my friends for granted. See like Karen. I don't know why, but as we were leaving Micky D and she said "I love you" and then she was like "I'm serious" it made me really accpate all those times when she says it just kidding around. Yea know what I mean? I take all those other times she says "I love you" just for granted. :-p.... yea...yea...yea..... I'm a dork :-D

"Just Like We Do"

Zooming down I-40 I often look past the piece of speeding machinery next to me through the driver side window to see the actual human sitting there. I begin to wonder about that person. What their life is like, what struggles they have face, if they been in love or had their heart broken. I wonder about their life's journey that led them to this point, cruising down the highway among strangers and driving next to me for a fleeing moment. 

It still amazes me when I realize in those moments of traffic that the sea of cars in front of me contain a person or people. All with their own stories. All with their own long list of triumphs and tragedies just trying to make it through the maze of paved roads and exits. That they are just not metal machines in my way, delaying me from my desired destination.

"La La La Means I Love You"

Maybe its my type B attitude, I am not sure, maybe its how I am the complete opposite in every possible way, but I always seem to befriend type A workaholics. Then I think about it and I could never understand why. I never seemed to understand the logic behind working 60 hours a week, working yourself to the bone, giving your entire self to a job or career just to make a buck. And I understand, I came from a privileged life. That I was provided things when I needed them, but I still feel as if there has to be more than just bank account balances and corporate ladders.

There has to be the look in the person you love eyes' and being able to come home to that, throwing birthday parties for your children, pints with friends you can always count on.... moments that are insignificant by the world's standard yet moments that for you last forever... not extra zeros in a back account.

"Welcome, Ghost"

What happens to a memory once you forget it? Does that event exist anymore? I've always been a reflective person, sometimes it feels like I walk through life backwards, only examining my steps after I take them. I am always amazed by the people who are able to power through life without looking back. To tell you the truth, a lot of times I find myself envious of them. Envious of how they can take each day for today, like a renew beginning. Unlike me who sees every event as a continuation of a story, everything always connecting. There are times that I feel plagued, or that I am cursed. Cursed to be the holder of memories, no matter if they are insufficant or small. Embarrasing or hurtful. Joyus or happy. Picked to the Jonas of my society.... but then I think what it must be to forget. And in one of the many nuggets of Disney wisdom I think about what Jamba once said...."What must it be like to have nothing, not even memories to look back on in the middle of the night?"

Then I realized that maybe we are both flawed, the ones who remember and the ones who forget.... or better yet... nothing is wrong with either of us.