Family and Friends

I got a call last night at 2:20 in the morning. I woke up enough to hear it, and then groggily pulled my pillow over my head. A minute later the annoying ring blared again from my desk, and I rolled out of bed, grabbed the phone and hit the Ignore button to silence the beast before rubbing my eyes to see who was calling me at that time. It took a minute or two for things to process in my head, but before sleep consumed me once more, I sat up and called the number back. My best friend Jessie has a knack for calling me at the oddest times due to the time difference between New Jersey and Arizona, but it was an odd time even for her (it was still only 5:20 a.m. in Jersey) so I figured I would be the worst best friend ever if something bad had happened and I didn't call her back just because I wanted some sleep. She answered and I immediately could tell that all was well in her world: she sounded much more excited than I did in my crabby just-got-woken-up-unexpectedly-in-the-middle-of-the-night state. "Go outside and look at the moon, there's a lunar eclipse!" she said. I opened my eyes and looked up at my window, moonlight streaming through the half-opened blinds. "No there's not," I said sleepily, though less crabbily since Jessie has a way of making me happy at any time of the day or night. But I went over to the window anyways, and sure enough, only the bottom third of the moon was visible, with a pale orange glow coming from the upper part of where the full moon should have been. It was still about 20 minutes from a full eclipse, so I told her to call me back when it was a bit closer, and I flopped down on top of my covers for a bit before the phone rang again. I took the phone and walked back over to my window, leaned against my bedroom wall to keep from falling over in my exhaustion, and answered the phone. With Jessie, and her boyfriend, on the phone, I watched the moon become fully eclipsed by the Earth's shadow, turning it into a faint, brilliant orange colored disk. Thousands of miles away (never mind the time difference), we watched the beautiful spectacle together, and all my sleepiness faded away with the night as the sun started rising over the Jersey shore. It's times like these that I realize what a great group of friends and family that I have. Jessie and I have been friends since I beat her in the mile run of the very first day of basketball conditioning during my freshman year of high school. In the decade that I have known her, we've shared hundreds of ups, downs, and everything in between. From dropping batons during the Austin track meet and slam dunking basketballs before the New Washington game, to Jet Lawrence concerts and bridgejumping over Silver Creek, to all the trouble that we got ourselves into in high school, a couple of graduations, a couple of engagements :), and hundreds of laughs, tears, and amazing memories. She's told me on numerous occasions that she is not going to get married on an odd year, for fear that I will be out rowing on some ocean and would not be able to be in her wedding. We've been there for each other through absolutely everything, and I just find it amazing to have friends like that.

I've also got a pretty amazing family. My entire extended family on both my mom's and dad's side is pretty close, and have always been the backbone that has supported me and the foundation from which I grew. I won't blame them for all the crazy adventures that I find myself in, but they all played a role in shaping the person that I am today. From building forts with my little cousins in the woods of my grandparents' farm, to my sister rescuing me from our roof and being my "mud buddy" at our river since we moved to our own farm, to my mom instilling in me my love of books and science, and my dad teaching me values and the wonders of the natural world. I could talk about them all day long, but I'm trying not to write too many books on this blog. I just wanted to share a quote that my dad sent to me. It says, "Learn to embrace change, and you will begin to recognize that life is in constant motion, and every change happens for a reason. When you see boundaries as opportunities, the world becomes a limitless place, and your life becomes a journey of change that always finds a way." I'm not sure where he got the quote, but it sorts of sums of this little segment of my life, and I love how he always knows how to help me keep my head up no matter what I'm going through.

So, just a heartfelt thanks to all of my family and friends that have always been there for me, pushing me, encouraging me, sitting in the trenches with me when things go wrong, partying it up with me when things go right, and for calling me in the middle of the night so that I don't miss out on the beauty that this world has to offer. I love you all!