I wish I would have posted this first part of my post soon after it happened. Frankly, it just doesn’t seem like I’m doing the occasion justice clumping these topics together. But I’d like to clear my head…

Last Friday, Carol and I got engaged. I know I had posted that we were talking about it a couple posts ago. And this probably came as a shock to some of you who know me a little better seeing that I got divorced not all that long ago. But things just felt so right between us. You know how you can know someone for years and not really feel like you know them, while other people you can just meet and feel like you’ve known them forever? Well, the more I’m with her, the more I know that we were meant to be together. We just go together plain and simple. I’ll spare you all the details of the engagement (mostly because the alpha male in me doesn’t want to get into the embarrassing details). When I’ve been talking to people about it on the phone, I’ve actually had her describe the evening instead of me. It just works better that way.

So, it was a wonderful weekend. My bonus and raise hit my bank account last Friday, I signed up to do another Ironman this year, and I got engaged! Here I am floating on cloud 9 thinking that the world is wonderful and everything is grand… and then the phone rings. It’s a good friend of mine. I haven’t talked to him in months, but I can immediately tell from his voice that something is wrong. After an uncomfortable “long time no talk”, he spills it on me - one of our friends from college was killed this past Friday in a motorcycle accident. It literally sent chills down my spine. Just eight months ago, we had all hung out in Daytona Beach together for a bachelor party and enjoyed our time together as reunited college friends. The idea that he is no longer with us is just surreal. I wasn’t even that close to him, but he certainly wasn’t a stranger by any means. And if I’m feeling as bad as I do right now about all of this, I can’t imagine what his family, closest friends, and his fiance are going through right now. I’m just sitting here in shock at the thought of it all. Something like this certainly puts things in perspective. Suddenly, nothing else but life itself seems all that important.

I don’t know what else to say…

Dylan, you were a good man… We’re going to miss you.