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Found a nature preserve a couple miles from my house. Took one wrong turn and stumbled upon this old rocky dirt road that led me to it. It reminded me a lot of this path Courtney took me on in Peachtree City that led down to some stream, except this long path led down to this huge open space with a beautiful marsh and it had wooden walkways all around it so you can walk around it for miles and there benches for resting too. It was so beautiful.

I called my Grandfather - he's going in for surgery on Monday to remove a tumor on his brain and the doctors are saying there is a big chance he won't make it. But you have to understand something about my Grandpa Kelso. I've never known him and he's never known me. He is a retired navy officer that has a purple heart from saving an entire crew on a battleship overseas. He'd be entirely emotionless if it weren't for his anger and as far as I can remember the last time we talked was over two years ago when I called him asking for money - which he dutifully refused me of for damn good reason seeing as family shouldn't baby you, they should kick your ass when you are being a dumb kid.

So I called him - Within minutes... my grandfather..was sobbing. I felt like I should pray for him or hug him or be there. I told him "Grandfather, you are taken care of and God loves you". I couldn't believe I said those words to him. I've never let any emotion slip from my lips in his presence my whole life and here God was just spewing this love out of me. He was absolutely scared. Not of death, but of the thought that with his passing no one, not even his family, would remember anything about him.
So I told him to start telling me stories. And he began to talk about our Creek indian heritage and about how his father was Creek and he's half and I'm a quarter. He went on to talk about raising my father in Alaska and being in the Navy and I just soaked it up remembering everything he said. And he would just start sobbing uncontrollably during these stories and I'd tell him not to be ashamed.

I love him and I love my family. I was walking around on this wooden deck looking at the marsh thinking and praying for him and then I returned home.

Now I'm in a funk again.

I am thankful that I didn't have to be alone this Thanksgiving and that I was around friends - don't get me wrong, I am very thankful. But I just can't shake this sad vibe that is looming on my heart.. So this Thanksgiving - just letting go - trying my hardest to let go, and failing, and re-trying. But I miss my family, I miss Courtney's family and how close I was getting with them, and now I just feel a little bitter of all that's happened. I try not to be angry and if I do get upset I am quick to calm down but for the most part I'm just slugging around.

Can't wait to get my mind and heart back on track. To forget about all that's happened over the past two years, forget about wanting to marry anyone, or even the thought of marriage, and just shut off.

It's going to all be okay, soon enough.

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The art I do should remind me of why I worship.

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So I guess I've been praying for a long while now... 

I can't put into words what a day feels like for me - I really can't. A turd don't have to say a word for you to know it feels like shit. I know I have been given great mercy to get through some of these past few weeks and if I think about it; months.

I've been okay. But just okay. You try having something you love more than all the diamonds in the world go vamoosh and see if you don't just buck right up in the mornings. Lord, oh give me strength and grace to get through this trial. I have to figure out what life looks like when it's not about me - when it's not about a longing or the desire to love and be loved. 

I've got myself into a pattern of starting off every morning with the slow panic of realizing that nothing is as it was, giving that up to God, and continuing on to brushing my teeth. You know how they say that everything will remind you of her? Well it does, it just does somehow. I've turned around (but not taken down) every picture of her in the room because I would just find myself staring at them. And that's how a day could pass. I look for her everywhere I go but I never see her around. I keep hoping that I'll see her out at the grocery store and at least get some sort of fix from just being in her presence again, but that's just sad. 

I told myself - don't write all this down, don't show you're scared, don't admit defeat. But I am scared about what's going to happen now that the end is here (or whatever it is we call this). Because believe you me, I've tried convincing myself that I can magically make her love me more or that if I do enough or be enough that one day I'll get her back, but it's not about any of that. It's just a shame I can't let her go. I just wish there hadn't have been any letting go... but what was healthy for her was to do so. She was too angry, too hurt, too much of everything to deal with it anymore and here I am a glutton for all sorts of punishment, I'm still stewing in the agony of a broken heart when I could be moving on just like her...(or whatever it is she's doing)

Stop me now, for this will turn into a direct letter.

It ain't like all that anyway. I pray for you everyday. I picture angels around you at night watching you sleep and I thank God that he does that for me. I remember every detail of your face and I don't let one nuance escape. I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of thinking of ways that I can win you back, but I don't ever get tired of remembering how beautiful you are and how much I love you. It's unreal the amount in which my heart has grown in size since I met you.

I fight the urge everyday to tuck a note under your car door handle and just tonight at the grocery store, close to midnight I went in looking to get cough syrup and went straight to the roses thinking I'd drop one on your doorstep along the drive home and no one would have to know. 

Two hours ago I was cursing the Lord over how much I hated my room and everything in it and shortly thereafter God had me laughing aloud on my knees saying how beautiful everything in here was. What I'm getting at is this - something led me to writing all this out because I felt a dire need to do so and I think for the most part it's meaningless, but what's done is done and I'm thankful for it all. 

In Psalm 90 it says - 

"Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many days as we have seen evil."

Amen, amen.

I love you.

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Walmart from Andrew Kornylak on Vimeo.

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Something about rock quarries makes me feel like home. I used to sleep at one for a summer before Dante took me in. I showed up to church covered in mud-ridden shoes and wet feet and I loved it. 

I've got so much to thank God for right now, even though most things going on with me are no where near how I want them to be, I am taken care of.

Lord, I thank you.

Last night I fell asleep by nine on my couch with a dog in my lap. I woke up around 10 and started watching "Reflections in a Golden Eye", one of my favorite McCuller's books turned movie. It was one of the best book to movie renditions I've ever seen. 

 I miss Courtney like crazy. It's been hard for me lately feeling like my other half is so far away from me. I miss everything about her. And it's not like she's gone - she's walking distance from me. It's just different...I miss my girlfriend, I miss everything that entailed. 

I am in awe right now of how much God loves me.