Big 10

Time flies sometimes. Other times, it crawls.

It seems like a life has come and gone. 10 years ago today, I discovered what it was like to loose someone you are extremely close to. August 5, 1998, my two closest friends, Lydia and Ana Diaz were killed in a wreck on I-10. It seems hard to believe that a decade ago, right now, I was mourning the loss of three (including their mother) wonderful people. I know it all sounds very cheap, seeing as how people die every day, but it really did make a huge difference in my life.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been had they not died that day. Their dad once showed me the plans he made for the wedding he had already decided would happen between Lydia and me. Lydia Musyoki? Ugh. What a gross name. Not that James Musyoki is much better. Had I been involved with her, would I have made the mistakes I did? How about this one, would I have wound up at Metro? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter, none of it happened. I’m here and they are gone.

I used to have a really hard time on the 5th. I didn’t really cry about it, but I always was a little depressed. The 5th is actually the reason why I’m so unemotional. Someone told me in the midst of my well reasoned tears that, “There is nothing to cry about. Stop being so ridiculous.” Being an impressionable 11 year old, I quickly locked up my feelings, and have never really let them out. I was working on a lesson of Sidewalk today about the tongue. The verse is Proverbs 18:21, “The tongue has the power over life and death.” That’s for sure. That tongue had the power over my emotional death. I don’t dwell on it, and I am much better that I used to be, but I am still extremely reserved.

The last four years have flown by. I look back on 2004, and think “That was already four years ago?” I look back on 1998 and think, “It’s only been 10 years?” I guess since I have changed so much over the last decade, I have lived two totally different lives. The person who I was then really died that day. There is very little about me that remains. I still like Cracklin’ Oat Bran, and I still enjoy looking at stars, but barring trivial things, I am a different person. Obviously a 21 year old is different from how he is when he was 11, but the people I know from back then are at least recognizable from their 11 year old counterparts. Unless you stuck a bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran (which is mighty delicious) with a star chart placemat under my nose, you couldn’t really tell that we are the same person. Well, maybe not. I’m still REALLY bad at small talk. At 11, I had aspirations of being a world famous chef, with a part time job as a biology (?!?) teacher. I rarely cook now. I don’t have anything to do with biology. I still have a severe aversion to semi-trucks. My heart rate races, I get nervous, and my hands grip the steering wheel tight enough to crush adamantium (shout out X-Men!).

10 years. Time crawls when you’re radically changing!

My sister asked the question for the ages. “Who put the bomp in the bomp-bo-bomp-bo-bomp?” I feel that the person who finally answers that question should immediately win the Nobel Peace Prize, and the entire Nobel system should be RETIRED. Even the prize for physics.