It's the Final Countdown!!

Yeah yeah, sorry for the cheezy Rocky reference in the title. It is now 10:58pm on Thursday, March 31st. Wow, tomorrow is the day. The big day. When I envisioned this crazy run, tomorrow just never seemed like it was going to be here. And now, boom! Here it is. The last few days have been pretty calm. And by calm, I mean to say hair on fire, running around like a chicken with my head cut off calm. We got to stay with my sister's friend Letia and her husband Matt in Beverly Hills last night, which was an awesome gift by them. Great people!! We left shortly after noon to drive down to Long Beach. We found a room about 5 minutes from the Belmont Pier, which is our starting point, at the Comfort Inn & Suites. One of the nicest hotels for the price I've ever been in. Anyways, we went to the pier today to check it out, and that is when it officially hit me, that this is going to happen. It's very difficult for me to describe in words on a blog just how I am feeling right now. I am obviously very excited about this monumental quest I am undertaking. However, there is all this other, well, shit, for lack of a better word, running through my head. I have that very nervous energy I remember very vividly from pre-game locker rooms in high school. All sorts of emotions, both nervous and focused. I remember though, looking around those locker rooms at my teammates, my friends, and feeling a sense of calm because I knew they were right beside me to have my back, and I had their backs. I feel alone in this test. Noone to look at and say to myself, I know they are in this with me. This is my fight, and mine alone. I am always envious of how cool, calm and collected wrestlers like Brad Hickman, Dylan Cottrell, Sam Whiting, and Josh Fisher. I watch them get ready to go on the mat, and am amazed at their focus and determined look. I see no fear or worry in their faces, just a calm, focused stare in their eyes. I think about all this, and it almost scares me more, because I have none of that right now. Just nervous energy, butterflies in the stomach, and a good deal of self doubt mixed in for good measure. I am generally a pretty confident feller socially. However, my life has been filled with a lot of self-doubt. It is probably the reason I am 32 years old, with no wife and no children, and no real career path to speak of. All of these things I crave in my life. I look back at who I was, and how I was at 16, 18, and 21 years old, and I was filled with confidence about all of those things. But somewhere along the way, it all just went away. For the past 6 or so years, I've just been floating through life, apparently waiting for it to just pass me by daily. Suddenly, I was no longer in the game. Hell, I wasn't even on the team anymore. Well that all ends as of 9am tomorrow!! This run will not only benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, it will benefit my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being. It has to. It must. I am going to take every opportunity that this experience gives me to change myself into the man I always knew I was meant to be. If I can finish this journey, I will undoubtably be a better son, brother, worker, and friend, and hopefully soon a good husband and father. This will absolutely be the defining moment in my life. I'll end this blog with the words of a song I have always lived by and will continue to work towards: "I wanna be the one, when all is said and done, who lived a good life, loved a good wife, always helped someone in trouble. On the day they lay me down, I want everyone to gather 'round, and say he was a father, brother, neighbor, and a friend. He was a good man." Wish me luck!!