I wana talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about number one on my, me mind.

You know the last few days I've been trying to understand this sense of...pull that I seem to be afflicted with. It all started as I finished off my book on The Battle of Bata’ an (the first major conflict in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor) I was sitting in the courtyard of the JSFB on the fountain feeling spectacularly uncomfortable with my rather bony body on the hard marble, and fighting off nature's call (a direct result of the running water just next to me I'm sure), just as the book began it's retelling of the last few days of the US military on Bata’ an. Just at that moment the national anthem was broadcast over the PA system.

Something stirred in my heart and I came to the realization that this song meant more to me than I usually give it credit for. It means that I'm willing to put with discomforts for other people, which I'm willing to do anything I can so that others might have that sense of amazing freedom that opened up in my soul that day. I’ve been incredibly blessed, I have enough food, I don’t have to fight to survive, I have a testimony of Jesus Christ, I believe in the Book of Mormon and modern revelation, I have a family that loves me, I have wonderful friends that care about me.

So why do I feel so unfulfilled in life?

I wish I could discover what it is that other people think about me…I really just don’t understand. What is it that people enjoy about other people? For example, there is currently a girl that I absolutely love talking to, she is funny and she shoots me down about as much as I bounce back, which is fine because I don’t mind being shot down except when I’m being serious (which isn’t very often) and most people I think just get offended by what I say…but this girl just rolls with the punches if you will. We have similar interests, all that other junk…but I know that this isn’t something that could develop into something more than just that… And I really don’t know if she even enjoys my company as much as I enjoy hers, heck I don’t know anything anymore.

Before this summer…maybe even so far back as before my mission I felt like I was at least in partial control of my life. I feel like a part of me is missing some quickening influence in my life is gone. And I miss it. I’m not as smart as I was, not as caring, not as good a friend. I just don’t know how to handle this…so what do I do? I try to work harder I try to be the person I was but it just isn’t there anymore. I feel like I’ve had a piece of me ripped off and I have this hole…just sitting there and I have no way to fill it. I don’t even know what it is that I’m missing. All I want is to stop having so many insecurities around me, to stop having to worry if they want to be my friend or not. I just want life to be normal again, I want it…

The word I was said far too much in the past few paragraphs. Maybe that is the problem; my life has become focused on me. God help me, I don’t have the strength for this one.