This picture and all my love goes out to someone I know and he knows who he is.

Time waits for no one and it still amazes me how much someone’s life can change in just one year. This time last year I was in Atlanta with Brandan and Amber getting ready for a vacation of a lifetime. We were boarding a United Airlines 747 for Bangkok, Thailand. This is a trip we had been planning for almost seven months. It was to be the trip of a life time for me. I was going to a country that I had never dreamed of visiting, with the man I loved and was going to spend what amounted to three weeks just with him. I was totally in loved with him and for the first time in my life absolutely happy.

Today, I’m at home alone. Brandan is no longer my partner. I suddenly find myself totally alone with all the time in the world and yet with nothing to do.

May 31st will mark the one year anniversary of Brandan and my break up. He has since moved on, oh so easily and I am left to think about all the, “What if’s.”

It has taken me every bit of this past year to get where I am today. Thanks to the help and support of a couple of very close friends, (thanks John and Amber) I have been able to move on, to some degree, with my life.

Brandan and I are still friends. We talk once in a while and we text each other often. We still enjoy going camping and we still celebrate each other’s birthdays. But as most often happens to friends, I feel we are growing distant and our friendship will end up being just pleasant memories. I still love Brandan. Love that is stronger than friendship, but less than what a partner may feel. I do hope for him the best this life may offer.

As for me, things may be looking up. I haven’t really dated this past year, but hope to do so shortly. I have met a guy that I hope to build a the very least a friendship and at most a life together. Time will only tell where this may go, but now days, all I have, is time.

Well, Amber and Brandan came and visited me this weekend. We had a blast. Really all we did was eat and drink and listen to music. Went to a great Oyster house Sat night and ate until we were stuffed and the came back and drank some more and listen to music and danced until Amber and I fell dead asleep on the couch.I’m leaving in the morning for Ohio and hopfully a better life. It’s always sad to leave friends behind. But with Brandan and Amber, I don’t feel like I’m leaving them, I am just making it more special the next time we get together. They are truely my bestest friends. Love to you both.

Since St. Particks day is this Saturday, I thought it would be nice to post some history on how this became a holiday.

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and the Irish. He was born about 389 A.D. in Northern Wales, which at that time may have been part of England or Scotland.

Saint Patrick had an adventurous life. He was captured by pirates at the age of 16. The Irish pirates brought him to Ireland to tend the flocks of a chieftain in Ulster. Six years of slavery made him a devoted Christian. He escaped to France and became a monk. In 432, a vision led him to return to Ireland as a missionary bishop. He brought Christianity to Ireland and taught there for 29 years. He used the shamrock, a 3 leaf clover, (Ireland’s national flower) to explain the Blessed Trinity. St. Patrick founded 365 churches, baptized over 120,000 people and consecrated 450 bishops.

Many tales sprung up about this popular saint. One of the most popular legends was how he charmed all the snakes of Ireland down to the seashore to be drowned by the water. The only certain writings of St. Patrick’s are his Confessions and a letter written to a man named Coroticus (See Tripartite Life of St. Patrick by Stokes and Lives by Todd, Healy, Bury and Lusack.). His Confessions are written in crude Latin.

According to some Irish writings, St. Patrick died on March 17, 461 A.D. The anniversary of his death is celebrated as St. Patrick’s Day.

It’s interesting to note that the shamrock clover flowers around that time of year.

The first official celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in the United States occurred in Morristown, New Jersey in 1780. It was authorized by George Washington. Today St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated by the Irish as well as many Americans with parades, parties, wearing of green, Irish songs and jigs. People wear green on this day to represent the lushness of Ireland - The Emerald Isle.

This is something new for me and I will be giving it a new look and feel over the coming weeks.  Please feel free to check in from time to time and leave me a messge.  Thanks

DJ