Chasing pavement...

Yep, that's a title of a song, about a girl (person) wondering if they should keep on chasing the person they're interested in, "even if it leads nowhere". Good song for the most part. I was thinking about it for two reasons. It was on the radio as I drove to work today, and since it was the last thing I heard it's on my mind, and the events of this past weekend, and to an extent, the last several months (almost two years). Yep, a girl. I know I said I wouldn't do this, but dang it, it's my blog and I can do what I like.
I'm not going into details of it, but there's a girl I love, and she loves me (call it blind faith), even though I know there are people out there who may say different. I'd love to date her, but there are some things which prevent us from being together. Mostly, she doesn't feel quite right about it, and she won't do anything till she feels right about it. As frustrating as that is, I really respect that about her. I've got the outside of Utah mentality of "I like you, you like me, there's not much else involved, so let's date". So I'm sitting around more or less, waiting for her to feel right about it. Waiting as patiently as a person in my position could ever be, which, sometimes isn't very much. But if you refer to the previous post, I had drill this weekend, and it was out in the middle of nowhere. Well I was one of a few people who had cell phone service, so my fellow Soldiers often asked to use my phone to call their wives, and girlfriends. A few of them, since it was boring out there, passed the time looking through my phone, and found some pictures I have of this girl, and pretty much everyone asked me if that girl was my wife, my girlfriend, or whatever. NOPE. SINGLE. STILL. THANKS. Then I had several guys come up to me for advice about their own relationships, one was even looking to get married soon and wanted my opinion on how to know. Funny, they expect a SINGLE guy to know?
Then I find out that my sister got engaged. Not the sister next in line, but the one that's 6 years younger than I am. And when my unit got back to our building, I had to fill out tons of paperwork which asked me my marital status. SINGLE. With all this SINGLEness in my face (compiled with the way I was treated this weekend), it was hard not to feel down, and very alone. Where was my significant other for me to call/come home to, how come my sister gets to find her "somebody" so friggin early (congrats by the way Laura, I really am happy for you!). The good thing about this is I don't have to think when filling out that paperwork, it's gotten pretty automatic. Of course I went through the normal questions all single people ask ourselves when we re-realize that we're "alone". What's wrong with me that so and so won't accept me? If I hadn't done this or that WAY back then would she love me now?
I feel I'm a fairly secure person within myself. Some may laugh, but I think I'm emotionally mature, and I've been "alone" for a good while, and I'm not going to have a mental break down just because I don't have someone to call when I'm away or someone to come home to. Nice as that would be. And people, please don't think that this post is a lament on my lack of friends. I have lots and lots of wonderful, great friends who I know would be there for me at a moment's notice if I asked. And I do love and appreciate them quite a bit. I was just given the chance to look at my life again and reaffirm me being ok with being single, even though I would rather not be. I don't know how long I'll have wait for this girl before she says it feels right. I have my suspicions of when it may, if ever, happen, but that's not to say here. I don't know if at some point my heart will be able to take sitting around waiting anymore. But as of right now, if, if, if, there's a chance that things will work out, I'm going to hold on to that. Call me stupid. I know I am. About a great many things... To me, this is a bit too important to give up easily. But if I'm not married by the time I'm 30, I'm seriously moving down to my sister's apartment complex in Provo and finding some young dumb freshman.

Army weekend

So I'm struggling with what to write about, but I know that I want to write. Hmmmm, well this past weekend I had Drill, working for the Army. This was the first drill that I've been to since I was selected at a Warrant Officer Candidate. This means that I have the option to not go to Afghanistan with my unit in the Spring. I had decided to take this opportunity and advance my career and life. They had been counting on me going with them in a rather important position, and now didn't have anyone to fill it. As I expected, this didn't make them happy, but a few of them encouraged me. We have a saying in the Army: The Army will get theirs, make sure you get yours while you still can. Sad way of looking at it, but its so true. If you let it, the Army will keep taking advantage of you till well, you're dead. I've given up almost a year and a half working for them, and about 4 semesters of school, soon to be 5, working for them. It gets kinda frustrating seeing how much I pour into it, and not only time, but emotion and energy. I wouldn't mind so much, if they treated us right. Like I didn't mind when my Commander cussed me out for leaving (I happened to be holding a loaded pistol at the time, so really, that was all he could do). But several others who were once my friends didn't talk to me, mostly because I figure I was disgraced, or a slacker. Either way I was in the dog house with my unit and they weren't going to risk being tainted themselves by talking to me. I can't blame them, usually when someone does what I did, they're exiled and treated like they have the plague.
My friend Paul used to work at our unit full time. Nobody put as much time or energy into doing things right and on time like he did. He would stay all night working on a project to make sure that it would get done, even when the responsibility isn't his. He went back to being a normal Reservist like me, and since he wasn't there to do everything for the unit like he normally does, nothing got done. He had to come in a few days early and work almost nonstop to make sure that things went according to plan. When things kicked off on Friday morning, the first group of vehicles that were supposed to move out left only a half hour late. Not too bad considering I've seen us leave up to three hours late. Well that wasn't good enough for some people, and they were cursing his name the whole time. This, and other things, made it so their most dedicated Soldier wants to leave the unit at the first possible chance.
Sigh, I guess it all comes down to what I talked about with a younger Soldier this past weekend who was having problems of his own with the Army. We figured out that while we don't love the Army per say, we do love our Country, and its for that, that we were here, and it's for that, that we'd make the sacrifices we do. Because sometimes, as much as I love my Country, I sure hate the Army.

Baby it's cold outside!

So, let me just update you real quick about what's happening in my world of sports. Currently, my Utes are sitting atop of the Mountain West Conference with a perfect 10-0 record. byu (notice I still don't capitalize them, even at the start of a sentence) lost to TCU on my birthday, and Utah beat TCU last Thursday 13-10. No, we're not a perfect team, but we do have a perfect record. What now? Real Salt Lake, my soccer team, beyond anyone's wildest dreams, has advanced to the Western Conference Finals! This game is going to happen on Saturday, and I won't be able to go because I'll be at drill with the Army this weekend. Aside from how exactly we got there, I'm confused about how we're the only team left from the Western Conference in the whole playoffs, yet we're still not the Western Conference Champs. The team we're playing, New York Red Bulls (how's that for blatant advertising) is in the Eastern Conference. Either way, we still need to beat them so we can make it to the MLS Cup game. Alabama is still the #1 team in the Nation, Auburn sucks, though it's up in the air who I hate more, Auburn, or byu. It'll probably change the closer I get to either school.

That'll do for sports for now. Once more, I'm sitting at work, bored out of my mind, and trying not to spend money I have, but don't need to be spending. I kinda went on a kick and bought a new board, boots and bindings for the upcoming snowboarding season. I'm really trying hard not to buy a new jacket too. I do have some justification for buying all of this, my other board, boots and bindings are kinda old, and at least my boots and board are falling apart on me. I'm not sure how I'm going to retire my old board. I know I'll have problems parting with it since it's my first real board. Broke my collar bone on it, took my first jump on it, been through several concussions... Good memories. I'm way excited for the SNOW that's been falling lately, even if down in the valley it's more rain than anything. As long as the mountains are getting slammed, I don't care.
And finally, I have been SICK SICK SICK. It's not the puking my guts up type, because that would be too quick, but it's been the stuffy nose, sore throat, achy body and total loss of constructive thought type. The type that makes you want to crawl into the fetal position and cry for Mom. I'm on the upswing, or at least I thought I was. I felt like I have been for the past three days. As I write about getting better I can feel my stomach twisting, holding onto this flu or virus or plague like I'm going to hold onto my snowboard. I've been really lucky though to have some friends who have brought me dinner when I ran out of food and was too weak to go get some from the store. And Jason... well we'll just say that he's sick now too. Serves him right for not taking better care of me. I tried going to school on Monday, and then work on Tuesday, and lasted only a few hours at each. I have to play Army this weekend, and we're going to spending Friday, Saturday and Sunday out in the middle of nowhere, it's going to be cold and windy. I just hope I can get healthy enough so I don't get worse this weekend. Wish me luck.