August 14, 1994 – Sunday – 10:00 p.m.

Fourteen more days!

This Sunday went really well.

This was my last Sunday working in children’s church.  They all said goodbye and prayed for me.  I had so much fun in there this morning.

Kevin was working and Marcus is currently in the mountains for a college retreat thing, so I asked Jenna and Tenielle if they wanted to come over and go to High Falls with me.  They did and we had loads of fun.  They are going to come back next Sunday too.

It was just the three of us today for probably the last time, and everything was like it once was.

I love those two girls very much.  They have given me so much hope and confidence.  I don’t want to leave them, but by smiling at me I know that I have helped them grow these past eight months, and I know they will be okay.  And I’m not really leaving them, I’m just moving away, to hopefully inspire and be inspired by others.

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December 28, 1993 – Tuesday – 8:43 p.m.

My Grandpa came to visit me today.  He is still the wisest man I know.  I hope I will be like him when I am his age.  Wouldn’t it be something if I kept writing My Book of Days past sixty?  Over 50 years of my life written down.

I just read the introduction in my new Les Miserables book.  Victor Hugo finished writing the book of his life when he was sixty.  I’m 17 and I think Challenger’s Deep is the book of my life.

What will all these days mean to me when I’m sixty?  I’m almost done with my fourth Book of Days.  Is any of this important?

My life has hardly begun.

But nevertheless, it has begun.  I’m here.  I am on this earth, and I can’t leave.  I have to be here.  I often think if I would be a different person if I were born into another family and another environment.  But now that I think about it, it is stupid to think that way.  This is the only life I’ve ever known.  God gave me this life.  I don’t have a choice.  I am me, whoever I am.

I guess that is ultimately up to me to decide.  God gave me free will, but in that free will he gave me characteristics of who he created me to be.  He has a will, but it is up to me to live up to it.

Have I figured myself out yet?  I believe I have.  I know I have.  The people I’ve come in contact with know that I’m a person who loves Jesus, loves the theater, tells stupid jokes, is inspired by Les Miserables, and sees himself as something valuable in the future.  I am a person with hope.  I person with joy.  This is my duty.  I can’t be anyone else.  I guess the beautiful thing is, I like who I am.  I like hanging out with me.  I like who I have to be and need to be for other people.

This could actually be fun.